The two remaining development teams for Denver Union Station submitted their
proposals and met the Moday, July 23 deadline.

The team of Cherokee Investment Partners includes Dakota Ridge Development
LLC, New Boston Fund, Sage Hospitality Resources, Williams Jackson Ewing,
Buchanan Yonushewski Group and Kohn Pederson Fox.

The Continuum Partners Team includes East West Partners, AECOM, DMJ<
Harris, Kiewit Construction, and Skidmore, Owings, & Merrill.

The two teams are all that remain standing from the initial 12 that expressed
interest in the redevelopment project, which is probably the most important for
the region since DIA.  Liz Orr, Master Developer Executive Director was a
key player in the Webb Administration and had a lead role in the expansion of
the Colorado Convention Center and Invesco Field.

Union Station is slated to become a regional transportation hub, and will
cost about a billion $$ to complete.  There is a funding shortfall which
the successful team will need to correct in order to keep the process
moving. 

Union Station sits adjacent to LoDo and is poised to become a true
mulit-modal transportation facility.  The impact on LoDo and surrounding
residential and commercial real estate will be incredibly significant. 
There is the potential for 1.4 million square feet of development in the
Union Station redevelopment project alone, which will certainly impact other
projects throughout central Denver and beyond.

If you are interested in a short version of the complicated funding issues at
hand, read this exerpt from Rob Reuteman’s article in last Saturday’s Rocky
Mountain News:

The master plan calls for the light-rail, commuter rail, passenger rail
and bus facility to be put underground, so the surface can be fully developed,
not only commercially but also as public space. A rough estimate for the
“undergrounding” is nearly $500 million. RTD can use $213 million in FasTracks
money to submerge light rail and the DIA commuter train, but there is no $300
million to “underground” the bus facility or the railroad tracks. Everyone
involved talks about the “funding gap” of $300 million, and both development
proposals due Monday will address how it might be made up. (For more
information, see www.denverunionstation.org.)

“This is the most important project for the region since DIA,” Orr said.
“We want the developers to bring their best thinking to this project, using the
master plan as their guide. We give them the opportunity to change it if it
helps them address the funding shortfall.”

She expects to see the finalists ask for tax-increment financing, special
district financing – every conceivable sort of financing that will address the
public transit portion of the project in such a way as to leave some profit on
the table for them.

“The current scheme will have to change. It’s too big a gap,” the
developer told me Friday. “Not enough money can be made to close the gap fully.”

As John Huggins, economic development director for Mayor John
Hickenlooper, put it, “There is a significant risk a developer may spend
millions and end up with nothing.”

Keeping that in mind, may the best team win.

Business editor Rob Reuteman can be reached at 303-892-5177 or reutemanr@RockyMountainNews.com.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.