The first phase of the development project to transform the parking lots of Ball Arena could be finished in the next seven years, an executive for Kroenke Sports & Entertainment said Wednesday.

“So, Phase 1, we’re projecting as of now a build out around all of Ball Arena by 2032,” the organization’s senior vice president of development, Matt Mahoney, told several Denver councilmembers.

He cautioned it’s a tentative timeline.

“Things change, right,” Mahoney added during the South Platte River Committee meeting.

Kroenke Sports and Entertainment got approval last year to develop 55-acres around Ball Arena to support the larger River Mile development project encompassing the land in and around Elitch Gardens.

The Ball Arena 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 total project is expected to be completed around 2050.

What we know about Phase 1

The first phase will be the “entertainment district” around Ball Arena.

The entertainment district is expected to include a hotel, a potential new performance venue, multifamily housing and a pedestrian bridge going across Speer Boulevard to connect the sports venue with the rest of downtown.

Last month, the developers filed a concept plan for the bridge — marking the first addition to the planned neighborhood.

Kroenke Sports & Entertainment are planning to start construction on the first few assets in Phase 1A next year, with plans to complete it by 2029, Mahoney said.

2 affordable housing towers to come after

The conversation on the timeline came about as councilmembers on the committee created to focus on smarter developments along Denver’s main river questioned when affordable housing could be built on the site.

The city is working to hash out finer details for the development agreement it has set with Kroenke Sports & Entertainment in a measure that passed the South Platte River committee on Wednesday.

Most changes at Wednesday’s meeting dealt with the administration and management of linkage fees, a funding source for affordable housing.

The Ball Arena agreement has a provision where 20% of the linkage fee of up to $10 million would go into an escrow fund, while the rest of the linkage fee would go to the rest of Denver’s affordable housing, according to a city presentation.

The development agreement approved in 2018 for the River Mile development requires a linkage fee for the first 6.5 million square feet of nonresidential development to go into an escrow account for affordable housing on site.

The city is working to establish a special revenue fund to manage the escrow accounts.

Those funds would be held by ColoTrust, a Denver-based financial services firm specializing in local government investments.

Councilmember Jamie Torres asked about when the city would start to see the funds in the escrow accounts set up used, citing worries about whether the city would sit on the money for a long time to wait for Ball Arena’s developments to rise or what would happen if the major development never gets built as intended.

Mahoney specified the linkage fees aren’t allowed to be used for the first phase per the development agreement.

The first phase of the Ball Arena project is also meant to help pay for future affordable housing projects within the neighborhood’s future phases, mostly for two towers with up to 300 units.

There could still be affordable housing built in the first phase, but they will be part of the 18% that Kroenke Sports & Entertainment agreed to include in a market-rate multifamily housing project.

The funds raised during the first phase will mostly go toward building fully-affordable housing towers.

“It is loosely understood and hopeful that probably the linkage fees will be used to support two towers, that includes some deeply affordable, including maybe some permanent supportive housing that’s required,” said Andrew Johnston of Denver’s Department of Housing Stability.

The revenues collected for affordable housing will be saved for projects set for phases two and three, he added, not for Ball Arena’s entertainment district.

While there’s not much planned yet for the later phases, one fully-affordable tower is set to be built in each of the second and third phases.

And when Torres asked when Phase 1 would wrap up –— the time when the escrow accounts will potentially be used — Mahoney answered the current plan is within the next seven years.

As for worries the project might never deliver on its promises, Councilmember Chris Hinds, who represents the district covering downtown Denver, mentioned the fund structure could help ensure affordable housing comes to Ball Arena’s new neighborhood.

“Not only is it to help fund that fully affordable tower,” he said, “I would take it as a bit of an incentive to moving forward with the development too.”