PALM BEACH, Fla. — Broncos CEO and owner Greg Penner on Monday said the club is planning for “the next 40-50 years” as it works through deciding whether to build a new stadium and reiterated that all options remain on the table.
Penner added Aurora to a list that includes Denver and Lone Tree as municipalities the team has considered for a new stadium site. The Broncos have also consistently said they could decide to remain on the current Empower Field site and either renovate that stadium or rebuild.
RELATED: The $tadium Game: Inside the lucrative world of Colorado’s pro sports stadiums
One of the key decisions, of course, is where the Broncos will call home, whether it’s on the current site or a new one in the future.
“A lot of things go into it,” Penner told reporters Monday at the NFL’s spring owners meetings here. “One is working with different government entities, whether it’s state or city. It’s also where our fans are and where they want to be. Where can we do, if we’re going to, do development? Which, as you know, there was a plan on our current site for development, so that’s definitely an option that would go around the stadium.
“There’s a number of things that go into it.”
Most stadium builds now include some form of commercial real estate development, whether it’s a block or an entire neighborhood or district. Those developments provide both enhanced revenue streams but also vehicles for public-private partnerships.
“We’re really focused on what’s the best option long-term,” Penner said. “We’re thinking we want to create what’s the best option for the next 40-50 years, not the next 10-20 years.”
Penner also said the club hadn’t ruled out a new stadium or renovation project including a dome. Such enclosed stadiums allow for events like the NCAA’s Final Four, Super Bowls, year-round concerts and more.
“It’s definitely one of the options we’re evaluating, whether it be a dome or retractable roof,” Penner said. “That’s in the considerations.”
The Broncos’ lease with the Metropolitan Football Stadium District runs through the 2030 season. Given that most recently completed or in-progress stadium projects in the NFL take roughly four years from announcement to finish, the clock is ticking. But Penner said Monday that the club still has plenty of time.
“We don’t have a set timetable for making a decision,” he said. “We obviously have our lease at a certain date, which is a date we can focus on. But it could be something that could happen earlier than that. If we needed to, we could be in our current stadium longer.”
Team president Damani Leech said there is “a healthy amount of pressure” to decide the future course, even if the club doesn’t absolutely have to use the end of 2030 as a hard end date.
“We are not holding ourselves to that to say we absolutely have to have something by that year,” he said. “The components of what happens, though, are real and important. Stadiums typically take about 48 months to build from a construction standpoint. You think about what has to happen from a permitting standpoint and all those things. We’re starting to build out those calendars to get a better understanding of, once you do decide what to do, how long it’s going to take.”
Leech called the opportunity to work on a project like the future of the stadium “transformational” and “a signature opportunity.”
The spring owners meetings are a good place to pick up ideas and talk shop, too.
“Informally, you do that, talk to people in the hallways, but we spent probably two hours on that topic yesterday. Focused on stadiums,” Leech said. “Both the ones that recently built stadiums — Vegas, L.A., even Minnesota — and what are some of their learnings. Teams that are currently building stadiums like Buffalo and Tennessee, where they are, what they’re learning and what they’re going through.
“And then, obviously, I think there are a large number of teams that are looking at their stadiums from a life standpoint and starting to think about what the future might be.”
Want more Broncos news? Sign up for the Broncos Insider to get all our NFL analysis.
