Denver City Council voted Monday to move forward an intergovernmental agreement (IGA) between the city and the Broadway Station Metropolitan District Number 1 by spending $70 million on land acquisition and improvements that will enable construction to get underway on a 14,500-seat stadium for the city’s new National Women’s Soccer League team. 

While the vote does not approve all aspects of the proposed project, it keeps alive the option to build the stadium for the yet-unnamed team within a long-deserted property in Denver. The agreement will enable the city to spend $50 million for the land and an additional $20 million to build a 3.5-acre park, roads and a bridge in the area using funds from the 10-year, $937-million Elevate Denver bond program approved by voters in 2017. 

The stadium will be designed by Populous and built on 14 acres of undeveloped land at Santa Fe Yards off I-25 and Broadway in Denver. It will be the first sports and entertainment district built for professional women’s sports in Colorado, and the second such stadium in the world. The entertainment district is part of the broader Broadway Station transit-oriented mixed-use development, a 41-acre currently undeveloped site created when the factories of the Gates Rubber Company were demolished in 2014. 

In the meantime, a 20,000 sq-ft modular stadium will be built in conjunction with construction of the team’s training facility in Centennial, Colo., about 15 miles southeast of Denver. This will serve as the club’s home until the permanent stadium opens in 2028. Populous is designing the temporary stadium as well.

The NWSL team is being brought to Denver by an owner’s group led by Rob Cohen,
chairman and CEO of IMA Financial Group, who plans to build the stadium
for an estimated cost of $150 million to $200 million. Some council members expressed concern about using taxpayer funds to help a private ownership group build a private stadium and acknowledged the possibility that the group would seek reimbursement for the construction project from the stadium’s sales-generated tax revenues. Others shared concern about putting $70 million toward a soccer stadium at a time when Denver faces a “tremendous need for funds to improve roads, build supportive housing and other critical needs.” 

Ultimately, the IGA passed 11-1 in what Denver City Council President Amanda Sandoval called a “handshake between the city and the NWSL committing to take the project to the next step.” 

The women’s soccer team will play at the temporary stadium for the 2026 and 2027 NWSL seasons. Once the team moves into its permanent home, that stadium will be reduced to 4,000 seats and utilized by the Cherry Creek School District. 

The recently constructed Kansas City Current’s CPKC Stadium is the only other sports stadium built for professional women’s sports.