Denver is brimming with major real estate projects centered around the city’s major league sports teams.

There’s the new National Women’s Soccer League stadium in Santa Fe Yards for Denver Summit FC. The parking lots around Ball Arena, home of the Denver Nuggets and Colorado Avalanche, are set to grow into a new neighborhood.

And with the most recent announcement, the Denver Broncos is looking to move its stadium south of Colfax Avenue and east of Interstate 25 to Burnham Yard.

Once Summit moves into its stadium by 2028, the city will have at least six major league teams within a five mile radius of downtown.

A group of executives from the Broncos, Nuggets, Rockies and Summit held a panel at the Colorado Startup Week on Wednesday titled “The Future of Colorado Sports” to dive into how the sports business and development projects are set to boost the state’s and city’s national profile.

Denver is “lucky” to have many sports ownership groups looking to invest in evolving their own teams, either by revamping the team’s sports strategy or going all in on real estate projects, said Dennis Moore, chief operating officer of the Broncos.

“You’re finding ownership groups that are in extreme growth mindset, and leaning into innovation and change, whatever that means for our particular organizations,” Moore said.

The Walton-Penner family bought the Broncos in 2022 and announced last week the team picked the historic rail yard Burnham Yard as the “preferred” location for a new retractable roof stadium that the team and city leaders hope can attract a Super Bowl to the area. The team will buy the land from the state and the new stadium will be privately-funded without taxpayer funds.

The Broncos considered going out to Lone Tree or Aurora, but chose to stay in Denver instead.

The city agreed to build out basic infrastructure such as roads in the new neighborhood district.

Stadium mixed-used districts have become increasingly popular across the U.S. as teams seek to build upon the fan experience and maximize the revenue stream from game-day activities and days when there’s no events in town.

But as it is with any sports team, not much is better business than winning championships like the Super Bowl.

And better real estate can translate to getting better players to get that goal, several of the panelists said.

Moore said the team has to invest in making Denver a desirable destination to recruit the best NFL players. That starts with the new training facility near Centennial Airport, upgrading technologies the team uses and developing the potential stadium district, he explained.

“We believe that having the best facilities, not only as an economic driver and a pride driver for the community, really propels our business and what we’re after,” Moore said.

The same logic is even more urgent for Summit.

The bid to expand the National Women’s Soccer League into Denver included provisions to build its own stadium within three years so it wouldn’t have to lease from a men’s sports venue and keep its revenue for itself.

The team is currently in the process of building its roster from scratch for next year’s season. Summit attracted Colorado-raised forward Ally Watt, midfielder Lourdes Bosch and forward Nahikari García.

“This market has been amazing to recruit people to, but I think for players, really, the reason why they want to come play for Denver Summit FC is the investment that the club is making and ownerships making into our infrastructure,” Kaley Cohen, the team’s vice president of business operations and strategy.

But these major investments are coming during a time when many development projects are struggling to cross the finish line because of high interest rates, rising construction costs and tariffs.

Kroenke Sports and Entertainment got approval last year to develop the 55-acres around Ball Arena as part of the River Mile project.

The project is set to create a new city park, approximately 6,000 units of housing (with 18% being designated as affordable), and an entertainment district with new restaurant and retail.

The project is starting off with a pedestrian bridge going across Speer Boulevard to connect the sports venue to the rest of downtown.

At another event on Thursday, the organization’s Senior Vice President of Development Matt Mahoney said there’s a lot of development space to “bite off.” And right now costs are tough.

“Man, we are in the mix right now on feasibility. I’ll tell you that,” Mahoney said at the Colorado Commercial Real Estate Symposium.

The Federal Reserve dropped interest rates Wednesday, which could affect how financiers will loan to major project developments. Now the question is whether that will give enough relief to developers who are facing high costs across the board?

Kroenke Sports has been receiving costs analysis from their contractors all week this week, Mahoney said.

“This is a very difficult cost environment and revenues are not supportive of the cost… We’re trying our best to get there,” he said.

The project is being financed through metropolitan district financing that helps cover new bridges, utilities, roads and other infrastructure projects and private financing, he explained.

“Those have to marry up, and if those are not marrying up, then the project’s not going to work,” Mahoney said.

With the first phase of the project, Kroenke Sports is looking to better connect to the rest of the city and build community assets such as a hotel, housing and a potential smaller entertainment venue to complement Ball Arena.

Mahoney said super fans of the teams wanting close access to games will want to live there. But he added that their project wants to appeal to a broader market to make the project more successful.

“It really is the start of the district,” Mahoney said about the first phase. “And it’s really the spark that we hope lights the fire for future development across the properties.”