Public Amenities Committee - Regular Meeting

Welcome back to this bi-weekly meeting of the South Platte River Committee of Denver City Council. Join us for the discussion as the South Platte River Committee starts now.

I have a little confidence boost because I can do hard things.

Pick yourself back up. Good afternoon, everyone. Hi. Thanks for joining us. This is the South Platte River Committee meeting of June 24th. Thank you all for being here. We have one action item today. No items on consent, so we don't need to. worry about those. But before we go into our presentation for action item, let's do introductions and we'll see if we have any council members online. We do not. So we'll start in the room and I'll start to my left. That's fine. It's perfect time. Thank you. And I represent West Denver District 3. I'm Councilwoman Torres. Obviously we need one more here in order to vote on your action item, but we can get started with your presentation. So I'll turn it over to you if you wouldn't mind doing introductions and go right ahead into the presentation.

Okay. I am Andy Rockmore. I'm a principal with Shear Seconds Rockmore Architects.

Good afternoon. Thanks for having us here today. Steven Wilson with Community Planning and Development.

Dan Raznick with Shears, Atkins, Rockmar Architects.

Great. Shall I begin? Yes, please go ahead, Steven. Thank you. So thanks again for having us. So we're here today to present the Intergovernmental Agreement for the Wynkoop Crossing Pedestrian Bridge. So as the agenda for today, we'll provide a little bit of background, the council request, the actual proposal, and then the details of the IGA. So the request is to approve Bill 260923, which is an intergovernmental agreement between the city and Kroenke Sports and Entertainment Metropolitan Districts number two and three. Let's stick with that one. Great so, in terms of background, as you may recall, we had a big night back in November of 2024 and on that evening we presented and city council approved more than 6 items for ball arena. It's just a reminder of some of those items. The site was rezone from former chapter 59 into a central Platt Valley zone district zone district specifically for the area. The development agreement. was approved that formalized the affordable housing commitments, the signature park, and a list of community benefits and vesting. The arena trust agreement was approved ensuring that the Colorado Avalanche and the Nuggets will remain in Denver at that location until 2050. A view plane modification was approved that unlocks the opportunity for additional housing within the project and then specifically additional affordable housing opportunities. The Metropolitan Service District plan was approved and although not a codified requirement, a community benefits agreement that was larger and better than any that had been done in the city prior. Since then, we've done lots of work also. So updates since 2004 include finalization of the Metropolitan District election, forming the districts, completed development agreement amendments, including adding language for the environmental provisions and for easements. completion of an infrastructure master plan, application of the phase 1a site development plan, right-of-way vacations and dedication applications that will come to you in future requests, and then application for a tier 3 encroachment, and then the last item which brings us here which is the intergovernmental agreement. And with that, I'll turn that over to my applicant, Andy Rockmore, to give a little background on the project.

Thank you. Many of you have seen this structure and its importance in our city, but I will give a high level of all the componentry and the design vision, the intent that has created it. This image shows the intensity of the forthcoming development around Ball Arena. But today, as Stephen alluded to, we're focused mostly on the Wynkoop Crossing at Speer Boulevard. And this image better shows the challenge of this structure. It is positioned in the middle of three extremely sensitive contexts. And it seeks to unite those and resolve a lot of different aspects and functional requirements within each. To the right on the screen is the historic Lodo neighborhood. We cross Speer along Wynkoop and into a new emerging mixed-use district, Ball Arena. This is in a lot of ways similar to what this city endeavored to do 25, 26 years ago with the Millennium Bridge along 16th Street crossing and connecting neighborhoods, the Highlands neighborhood, to downtown Denver and Lodo. Thanks. This shows the structure quite well and those different contexts, which also actually each have its own jurisdictional requirements and approvals, which have been a heck of a lot of fun. We have met with neighbors and the community on the lower part of the screen through the Lodo. historic design review district. The bridge itself sits amongst the Speer Boulevard historic district and then on into the ball arena, which district which is sort of governed or approved by the Downtown Development Advisory Board. So as I said, all of these contexts are extremely important to our city. They're different. They're unique. And what this bridge seeks to do is allow them to remain, to not interrupt what makes them so special. And a lot of the... the result is the act of trying to solve all of those different requirements. So for instance, rather than overlay a symmetrical structure and have the context respond to a symmetrical structure, the bridge addresses the different sides of the context uniquely. Wincoup Plaza On the bottom of the screen is treated with brick pavers and a helix ramp which provides universal access up and across the spear. Very unique condition without the use of elevators. And then a single thrust arch. It's an arch which is anchored on the ball side and it allows it to touch very lightly on the loader side. grounds it and then finally the paths, which I'll talk a little bit more in a minute, are intentionally pulled apart to allow daylight and the lightness of the existing Spear Boulevard environment. Next slide. Sorry. No problem. So this is the result. And you can see here the singular arch. It is consistent, similar with the family of arches, which already defined this portion of Speer Boulevard. And we want to mention that this is every bit a civic expression, and it represents a gateway and a threshold to downtown. This is seen as the city's bridge, not the Nuggets Bridge, not the Avs Bridge, not the Ball Arena Bridge, but it is a bridge which exists prominently in our city and has designed to be worthy of that location. More specifically, If we look at the Lodo Plaza, this side of Wine Coop, as we cross Manny's Bridge on the top, again, a number of existing constraints. We have the creek, we have Manny's Bridge, we have the Children's Playground, we have Spear Boulevard, right of way and Volker Lofts, which is the one story garage to the right. We have met numerous times with everyone who represents all of these parts and pieces. And we're happy to speak further about all of the feedback. But the big picture here is that this really has been a collaborative design. It has been influenced greatly by all of you and by a number of people in the community who care deeply about the results here. We have also met with CPD long ago and understood their guidelines for safety. It's called a CEPTED guideline. It stands for Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design. And we've taken all, boy, a lot of those factors and tried to integrate them. And those factors through the design are certainly enhanced lighting, visibility, which I'll show you how that exists, material signage, landscaping, multimodal traffic safety. All of those factors have been integrated into the design. A little bit more specifically on the ground plane, there have been a number of improvements. The existing condition doesn't fully meet the ADA access to a number of these different parts and pieces. So this intervention, this design allows us to solve and make those significant improvements. So ADA access to Manny's Bridge, setting up the future improvements to the children's playground. And like we said, multimodal access throughout this entire area. Next. And this is an image that fairly well captures the entirety. It certainly captures the complexity of this position. Again, we are not able to really change the context. We must fit within it. This is a very constrained site. And in order to make all of the ADA access slopes and still get up to the bridge without requiring An elevator has been quite a challenge, but it also offers a number of improvements. One of them being on the left side of the screen, you can see we've created this overlook so that you're really connected to your environment, much the same way that one will be connected to the environment of Spear as you cross a place in our city that doesn't exist right now. The stairs which lead up to the bridge as well, and a landscape plaza at the base. And then moving forward, as one moves up, you can see here in this diagram the splayed paths. Again, we've intentionally pulled it apart rather than having one path that's about 32 feet wide, which would create a pretty adverse environment below it. There would very much be an above bridge and a below bridge place. we have intentionally pulled them apart. So we have two paths, 16 feet wide, very much equal, and we're not separating the different mobility modes. This is all access, meaning we're not going to have a bike lane on here or a scooter lane or a rickshaw lane or a stroller lane. Everyone is mixed and there is ample evidence internationally that combining all the modes promotes slower speeds throughout rather than giving each person their own lane. So you can see the arch which actually splits into two but is read more as a singular arch, the floor beams which are held up by the arch through stainless steel cables. And now we'll get a little bit more detailed into the design of the actual deck surface. You can see on either side, on the left during the day, on the right during the night, concrete deck. and railings, continuous handrail and a guardrail. The guardrail is at four feet six and this is compliant with all the municipal AASHTO codes for ped bridges that allow bicycles on them. And this exists everywhere in our city. There are two places where it doesn't exist and that's over railroads and interstates. But everywhere else in our city this is the condition and it's proven to work quite well. We also want to mention that we're intentionally angling the rails inward. You can just get a sense of this, especially on the image to the left. And this reduces that purely vertical wall effect and tends to keep people a little bit off the railing itself. This is a pretty exposed condition. And again, this is taken from numerous practices all over the world. On the right, you can see that linear LED lighting washes the arches. It's a continuous linear face that washes the arches. And it's also integrated into the rails. And then we use a reflective surface. The concrete is fairly light. And the lighting from the rails then reflects off the surface and you're able to see faces of people as they approach. So we're taking that very seriously. We don't want that sort of silhouette effect where you can't see people's faces. This is over a 200 foot span and it's important that it feel wide enough and generous enough and safe enough to be a pleasant experience. The next slide, I want to point, these are two more images. These actually show that visibility through the plaza along Wanku. And we're using, for instance, things like intentionally integrating round columns, not square, which will allow someone a little bit easier way to hide behind images. using landscape, large rocks, prickly bushes along the ground, and as much visibility as possible, and then an abundance of lighting. Last thing we want to point out, and it's a little difficult to see. Actually, it'll be easier. Notice the rails. I want to give a little bit more detail to the rail, but it's probably easier to see on the next slide. If you look to the right, the rail with the vertical pickets is a consistent assembly, a long spear. Not only are we painting this the same color as the other family of arches along spear, but using a lot of those similar details to continue the character and the context along spear. And I believe there's one more. Also some textures on the deck to create the slowness. And this is the closing slide. We love this slide because not only does it show the impact of a pretty significant civic structure in our city, but it shows also the blending of the old and the new. You can see Volker Lofts here and the quality and endurance of the Lodo character and also a hint of some of the new development to come. That's just, again, a very brief description. We're happy to answer any questions, but we hope you will agree that we've achieved a continuous and cohesive structure that respects the adjacent context, and it's a civic expression worthy of its important location in our city. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Andy. If we could have the presentation back up. Sure. I'd like to present some of the nuts and bolts of the agreement, if I can. Thank you great. So the purpose of the is to formalize an agreement that allows the city to approve easements and permits. For a private improvement on city property, and more specifically to allow the crossing bridge permitting and construction to occur. Highlights of the intergovernmental agreement include. The approval of the bridge, and it has three different real estate interests for the complete bridge. And so on the private portion, Ball Arena, that's one real estate interest. There's the portion over the public right-of-way, which is Speer Boulevard. which will have a tier three encroachment application and presentation in the future. And then the portion on city owned property that isn't right of way adjacent to the downtown playground. And that's the area where this IGA applies. The IGA creates the ability to issue the easements that I mentioned and the abutment of the bridge. As described in the IGA, there will be three different parts to the easement. So there will be a temporary construction easement. There will be a permanent easement for the bridge. be mentioned where there will be a great view. In the following slide, I'll show that easement so that you'll see a graphic for those. But I did also want to mention that in exchange for the easements, the city will receive consideration for the use of the land based on fair market value. The permanent easement amount is determined based on an appraised value of the land multiplied by the permanent easement area. This is a standard process for the Division of Real Estate and the amount is $3,498,432 for the permanent easement. For the temporary construction easement, consideration will be $30,000 in design services provided to Denver Parks and Recreation for the next steps planning of the downtown playground. This is the easement exhibit, and this is in the IGA. So the larger area that you see in blue, that's the biggest area, that's the temporary construction easement. The area shaded in green is the permanent easement area, and then the area in the pink color is the aerial easement. And we can come back to this if we need to.

Say that one more time.

Do you see so green is the permanent easement, the landing area and then the blue is what they'll need to construct it.

Got it.

Other highlights include change my picture. In addition to the district paying for the use of the land and building the bridge, the IGA establishes the maintenance responsibility for the bridge. Per the IGA, the district is responsible for maintenance and safety of the bridge, including all routine bridge maintenance, all long-term capital maintenance, safety and security measures, and maintenance of the adjacent storm sewer. So I won't go through this, but we can refer back to it if we need to. But so this is language directly out of the IGA that defines what routine bridge maintenance is. So just wanted to point that out and we can look at it if we need to, but it includes all of those things you think of in terms of bridge maintenance. As I mentioned, City Council approved the Metropolitan District service plans in November of 2024. In the service plan, there is a provision for regional improvements that would add an additional five mills for those regional improvements. The IGA, if approved, will allow the district to have an additional revenue source to pay for the design and construction of this bridge. only the owners of taxable property within the districts would be responsible for the regional mill levy. So this IGA identifies this as a regional improvement and allows them to have that financing option. Let's see here. Another key provision of the IGA is an allowance for final engineering drawings to be submitted to the city at the time of building permit application. So currently under a tier three encroachment, they would have to have the full engineering drawings at the tier three encroachment. This has a provision that allows that to happen at building permit application. This provision would allow the Tier 3 encroachment to be reviewed by City Council, the Tier 3, which will be a future request, and it'll allow the final engineering drawings to be reviewed by technical staff, again, at that time of building permit application. The reason for this request is completing the final engineering effort before an approval would be an unusual risk due to the size and scope of the project. And separating the final engineering will help meet the project timeline, a timeline that's closely tied with city goals to host the 2028 Democratic National Convention. In terms of a timeline, so June 24th, we're here at the South Platte River Committee, anticipated mayor council for June 30th. First reading with council on July 13th, and then second reading on July 20th. And then just with the closing slide, you've heard me mention it a number of times, but the tier three encroachment is anticipated to come to this committee on July 22nd. And with that, I'll close and ask if there are any questions.

Thank you both so much. One of the things that I just want to start off with was the language of the IGA. I know I didn't and I'm hearing confirmation that none of the members of the committee had access to the IGA language or saw it until just today. So I want to share that it was uploaded to the proper folder by the city team timely, but it was left there. It was not uploaded into Legistar, which is usually where we look for all of the documents as of last week Thursday. So a couple things and then we'll get into questions because I want to use our time well since South Platte really only has one meeting this month and one meeting next month, which is also going to be about the Tier 3 encroachment next month. One is whether committee members want to, and you don't have to decide right now, we can go through Q&A and then decide at the end of that time. But I think we have a couple different options ahead of us. Because of the rule we just passed, that we need to see contracts before they come to committee. We need to provide a waiver as a committee if we're going to bypass that rule. So one, if we feel comfortable with what's been presented and review the IGA after committee, we can pass it out of committee. If we want to delay so you have a week to work on it, we can put it on either a consent agenda for South Platte next week or delay vote until July 13th. So those are three options I think before us. I think this is all new information to everybody in the room. So you're, yeah. Go ahead, Council President.

So if we move forward, do we have to provide a waiver still right now? Yes. And then you provide it as chair. I know I'm the one who drafted it. So we're all on the same page. And then that would come. Do we have a draft of that? Have I asked John to create us a waiver? Or do you just write an email that says, I waive this?

No, it's a good question. John's on Zoom. And I think he's hearing us right now. Yeah, he's listening right now.

So John, wherever you are, can you ask us? Because I had to provide a waiver one time for a ballot initiative. And it was a whole form letter that I had to sign. what kind of waiver do we have to provide? And you could just teams towards that. Cause I want to just make sure that it's all T's are crossed and I's are dotted. If we're doing it this, yeah. Okay.

And for our presenters and for our guests in the room, this is a new rule. We just passed this in council relatively recently. So, John is getting promoted on zoom, but John, you can also respond to me over teams. I do want to make sure that we're getting into the content because the content is really important. What you just presented is really important and no matter really important. I know, no matter what we end up doing, this is the time for questions about at least what we've heard in presentation. So I just want to set that as kind of just a status of where we're at. And before we get into questions, I want to invite Council President Sandoval, Councilman Watson, and Councilwoman Romero-Campbell joining us on Zoom. We're into the meeting today, so thank you all. We do have a queue.

um john go ahead oh sorry yeah i was just gonna i figured it was easier to say out loud um so there isn't uh any sort of formal waiver process yet in the email or anything that's what we shouldn't create a form if needed but we don't have one so whatever that way Okay, okay, we'll get that.

We'll get there when we get there. Um, let's go to thank you, John. Let's go to our queue of questions. We've got councilman Hines up 1st.

Thank you committee chair. Thank you. Council president for the rule and it was. theoretically meant for just this, because I see that I received the 29-page IGA, which we're meant to consider and vote on today, at 1.32 today, and the committee started at 1.30. So I was trying to do my best to give you the attention that you deserve, because it was a public forum and recorded, and also trying to you know, could keep up with the IGA and, you know, like read the IGA and look at the slides because this, like one of the slides says, and they're not numbered, but it happens to be slide 21 is the IGA highlights and it talks about bridge maintenance It doesn't say in this quote of the thing that I received after committee started, it doesn't say who's responsible for that. The slide before says maintenance, but it doesn't say who's responsible for maintenance. So I'm curious, like, just to... Back up to the bridge itself for a moment. I think the bridge is amazing. I think that the bridge itself will be... Not many people go to places and say, I want to go to a bridge. You got Brooklyn Bridge, you got the Bay Bridge, you got, you know, London Bridge.

Bridge to nowhere.

Yes. There's one... Yeah, it's a bridge that taxpayers spend a whole bunch of money outside of Shreveport that also just ends nowhere as well. So I think that's separate from the actual bridge to nowhere. But we've got London Bridge. If it is still standing, I heard it fell down. Can we keep moving? The bridge itself, I think it's great. And I want to thank, I talked to, you know, Mr. Shears, the S of the S-A-R, and I said that, you know, my request is for there not to be elevators. And thank you for considering that and honoring it. And because the elevators go down all the time. And Fortunately, I have not been trapped in an elevator in City Hall for two weeks now. I think they finally fixed the, it was every week to two weeks I would get trapped in an elevator here in the City Hall. So elevator, it's just so, people will come to see the bridge and people will come if they want a conveyance device and they'll get onto the conveyance device and off as quickly as they want, whereas we get an average of eight elevator assignments every day in the city of Denver, according to the fire department, and those are people thinking that they're gonna get onto a conveyance device and get off in a short period of time, and they're not. So I want to thank you for listening to the community, listening to my concerns. I think that we had the conversation and discussion and it's also settled that this is in context with the character of the surrounding area and I would agree with that too. Here we're meant to vote on that language and another 28 and a half pages. So that's the rub is the operational, like the procedural concerns. And so I just love the bridge, but we should actually be, you know, able to read and discuss the IGA. So who's doing the maintenance?

I don't see that in the... Yeah. So the Metropolitan, the Cronky Sports and Entertainment Metropolitan Districts 2 and 3 are doing the maintenance. Okay. And this definition is just for the routine maintenance. And I share your frustration. The document was sent on June 15th and at that point it gets outside of my hands and I can't tell what happens to it. So I apologize and I share the frustration that you didn't get a chance to look at it because the team can say that we absolutely beat them up on getting it done early enough so that this committee could read it.

What I even see in the thread that it even says we're now under the requirement to provide signed agreements prior to the committee. So, you know, Mile High Ordinance at denvergov.org was aware and was keeping everyone else aware as well. So I'm sorry that we're in this spot where, and maybe to my colleague's point, I don't know if we put in a rule on June 6th or June 8th and then the first time we come up with it, we do a waiver. So I'm not sure what I, I'm still kind of mulling through it, but I would like to read it because this is our opportunity to have the conversation and discussion before moving into the full body.

I think that's fair. What I'll say before we go into other questions is so we can contemplate one option for this is postponing approval of the action item to next week. It would be on consent agenda. Council members would have until Wednesday if they have questions about it to pull it off of consent, which then would put it on the July 13th agenda for questions and vote. But if you don't have questions, it remains on the consent agenda and continues to go through. So that would be my preference. Okay. That would at least give us one full week to take a look at that language. At least it's not a hundred page IGA, which we've also seen. So this is doable, but just as an option for us and we would just need to postpone this side. I will say this might be for us as practice to be sure to check SharePoint for these contracts because they may not always be uploaded into Legistar. So just for our awareness as well, there's a SharePoint where it was available and it was timely uploaded. We just didn't know to check there. So a couple of different communications snafus on this and nobody's true fault. So I'm trying to solution our way out of this little predicament. Okay. Let's keep going into questions. Council President Sandoval.

Thank you. Thank you all for this and I'll just to get the whole IGA. It's because when we were working on the women's soccer, we didn't get things. And when we had said we would, and so we had to create a rule. For the administration to proactively give us documents that we were voting on. So it's not a have anything to do with you all. There's just some. like a little scab left over and we're kind of scratching it right now from lots of IGAs that we had to read that were very complicated that had diagrams in them that I really geek out and like to read. So, because I will read this. As you all know, I do read this. these documents and then call things out. So I just wanna say for the bridge, and I will send questions, I'll read the IG if I have questions as it comes up, but for the bridge, I just wanna first say, when we've been meeting, we asked you to do the SEPTED, and that's not a community planning and development process, it's actually a DPE process, and you said community planning and development by accident. So I just wanted to let the public know that we were looking at this bridge. I have lots of bridges in my council district. We've had lots of conversations at this committee about bridges. And I also did say, please don't put an elevator because the elevators don't work. And they actually came and got a tour of the Millennial Bridge. over I-25 that lands on Platt Street and starts on 16th and connected, really did connect Highland into the Central Platt Valley and onto the 16th Street. I keep having to say mile because I always say mall. So I do want, thank you for doing that because there are, bridges are great. I love going to bridges. I've gone to the London Bridge. I've gone, you know, And at the same time, they also can create areas that aren't so friendly. And they can also create areas that don't have active urban environment and tactical urbanism. And I really do think that you all have done your best to take a complicated bridge that when I first heard about it, I was like, absolutely no, very, very straightforward. And you've worked with us to get me to a place where I feel much more comfortable. And it will be an iconic piece of coming into the city. And it comes right, my council district starts right on the other side. right over there, and thank you for taking cues from the bridge along Speer Boulevard. That is a really important part of Denver's history, and it's a really important part of my history because what people don't always remember is those Speer Bridges also reflected the 16th Street Bridge, the 15th Street Bridge, and the 20th Street Bridge. And so for me and Mike, when I was growing up, the only way that I could get into downtown Denver was by a bridge. I had to literally take the 16th Street Bridge and the 15th Street Bridge, and then we tore those all down and we opened up the Central Platte Valley. And so for me, as a councilwoman who represents an area where bridges have come down, thinking about putting them back up and the spaces that they create and the real issues that I've had since working at the city with bridges, is another scab for me, the little sore spot that I get that I'm like, okay, if we're doing it, we have to do it right. Because the IGA, the maintenance of this will be so important. There are so many bridges where I have opened up documents and I have no idea who's responsible for that bridge. I have no idea who is on the metropolitan district. I've already literally had a meeting in my office with a metropolitan district because of a bridge over the consolidated rail line. just this spring because it's really hard when things 30 years from now that's what we're building is a bridge that will be 30 years from now and those other iconic bridges i don't know how they do it that they make that they stay really nice but they do and so that's my hope for this bridge And the other questions I'll just have to send once I go through the IGA because that's really going to be one of the most important pieces of document that everything is clearly spelled out and identifiable so that people don't have to go into the public records and come back to... June 24, 2026 to figure out who's in charge and what's happening because we'll be long gone. But thank you all for working with the community. Thank you for keeping the integrity of the children's playground. I know you know how important that was for me. I know that we really worked on that playground. It's the only playground I think in downtown Denver. right in that area and so the things that you all did and to the team, thank you Bethany and thank you team for meeting with us like time and time and I would always say well show me this view. Show me this view at three at December 21st at five o'clock at night. And I would say, it's hanging over the Cherry Creek path. Why is it kind of leaving over? I can get underneath there. What are you gonna do about that? And every single time I posed a really, really challenging question, you all rose to the occasion and really thought about it and I could see the next presentation, you said, here, here's how we addressed it. I have one question though. In the IGA, you have, this, it's page, I don't even know what page this is. Oh, it's 28. I did not even realize how many trees were being removed. So it's called Exhibit E Tree Removal Plan. So there's some really tiny trees. There's some honey locusts, which I think we're okay with, because we have issues. There's a couple of trees in there that are actually bigger. When you build, how will you replace some of those trees that you're taking out? Because am I reading that correct? That those trees are being removed, the ones with the X's?

Existing trees need to be removed. Yes, and a lot of that is...

It's along the Spear Boulevard. It's in that whole area. So how do you, what's your plan to replace, because I'm not going to count them, but what's your plan to replace all of those trees that will be removed because of this new iconic bridge? Can I get a commitment to like replace them along there and somewhere else?

Yeah, so this tree removal exhibit plan has been done with forestry. And so what forestry does is they only do an evaluation of tree and species and caliper size and then they assign a value to that tree. And then the project has to pay for the value of those trees and the removal. So for this area and for the other side next to Chopper Circle, the project is gonna pay some very substantial mitigation fees for those trees.

Where do those fee, where does that fee go to? Does it go to the general fund or does it go to forestry?

I don't know, I'd have to.

Can we find that question? Okay. And then I would love to know an estimate of the fee amount because I think that you all will build trees there. But the two that I was concerned about, and I know I'm like being a total tree hugger here, but is the English oak. Like those are just, the oaks are really, they take a really long time to grow. They're really, really nice trees. And there's several English oaks here. The honey locust, I totally get. There's a whole list of honey locust. Blue spruce, those don't take as long. But there's a couple trees on here where I was like, wow, I've never seen a tree exhibit like this. So it kind of caught me off guard. So that would be, that's just my one question. Okay. And then I'll just keep perusing through the IG. And if I come up with more, I'll let you know. Thank you, Manchur. Great. Thank you.

39 trees, two stumps, and one spot where a tree used to be.

Yeah. Okay. Thank you. I've got Councilwoman Alvarez next.

Thank you. Appreciate the conversation. Really cool bridge. Glad it goes to somewhere. And it hasn't fallen down. And it hasn't fallen down. But curious about the place where it lands, that's city property, right? So the easement is with the city of Denver. Correct.

Correct.

And then for the playground, I see $30,000? Correct. For design?

Correct.

And that does not sound like enough. And what if it's not enough?

Yeah, so if I could elaborate a little bit, and let's see if I can find a good slide.

Let's use this one.

So for the children's playground, The playground itself will remain in its current location. The walk around it will remain in its current location. What gets reconfigured is the sidewalk just outside of the children's playground. Also, this entry into the south. sorry to the Cherry Creek Trail here gets reconfigured because currently it doesn't meet ADA requirements.

So there's no new playground?

No new playground. So the... What's the age of the playground that's there? That's a good question.

It opened in 20. I was working for Judy. That's why it's like my baby is because Judy and I fundraised for this. So it opened in about 2014, built in 2013, opened in 2014. And it was an agreement between those two lofts that are right there. And they really helped fundraise for that playground and donated a huge portion of money to that playground. And then GoCo was part of that playground as well. So it was a multiple funding stack to get that playground. So when we were talking about that, I was like, that playground's near and dear to my heart. We're not messing around with that playground. I worked a lot. How is it going to get updated one day?

I don't know. Will it become part of the Metro District part where the maintenance will continue or no?

No. So the improvements that are there, anything that's affected will be put back whole in terms of sidewalks and even some of the improved materials. Then the $30,000 is being used for design efforts to identify the next steps for the children playground. parks would typically do is do a public process to envision what the playground would want to be in its next evolution. And so the $30,000 that parks has been working with Wink landscape architecture firm on coming up with the concept for that next steps so that parks can start their process.

Okay. For the mills that will be going to this project, are they just throughout the Metro District or which parcels in particular are going to be taking those mills from?

So relative to the metropolitan districts, I'll ask Kirsten to come up and talk with that.

Hi, my name's Kirsten Beck. I'm the general counsel for Kroenke Sports. So the initial portion of the metro district will involve the initial phase one, which is everything that is east of the arena. That is what is considered to be part of phase one, and that is what would be included at this point and being assessed as far as the mill levies go. And then as the development proceeds, then the rest of the properties would be brought into the district.

Okay, and what is the estimated revenue for the 25 years?

The estimated revenue of?

for the mills that are being dedicated for five years, the five mills that are being dedicated for 25 years?

I don't have the exact answer to that. It's only a portion of, just so you know, the regional mills does not cover the full amount of the cost of the bridge itself. So the metropolitan district itself, right, because this is regional mills, and then we have our metropolitan district mills. It will also dip into that, and I just don't have the exact specifics.

So the regional mills are still coming from the Metro District?

They're all coming from the Metro District. It's all funded by the Metro District. So the intent of all of this is that the property is the one who is paying for these improvements. And then not just for the construction of the improvements, but for the maintenance, ongoing security throughout the district, throughout the life of the bridge.

So the regional mills are designed to go beyond just the district, correct?

No, not at all. They will all be in the same thing. It's just a different funding mechanism. We have our regular mills that are permitted under the Metropolitan District. And then we also have the five mills for the regional improvements. So that's what the purpose of this IGA is, is one of the things for us to be able to use these funds for the bridge is that the city council does need to designate this as a regional improvement, which is what it is, so that that way then we have access to those five regional mills. But it isn't spreading this to the city. There's no additional burden that's being created. All of this stuff relates back to what we did in 2024 under the service plan. And so really what the IGA is is the implementation of the service plan that you guys permitted us to have a designation for a regional improvement. We would then have the ability to have a regional mill that was associated with it. That's exactly what this IGA is, is it's implementing exactly what the service plan provided.

I guess the reason for the question is just this will not, this will be added to the Metro District, this land, the easement or...

The landing, the landing will be well, depending on which side it is, the easement itself and all of the maintenance obligations will be an obligation of the metropolitan district. So the city will be entering into the easement with the metropolitan districts. Yes. So that's and that's why we start with the intergovernmental agreement and then we move to the, to the easement.

Are there other dollars being thought of being used outside the metro district or was this an exception?

No, this will all be utilized within the Metropolitan District.

That's the purpose of the Metropolitan District. But the easement's not in the Metro District?

The easement's not in the Metro District because the easement is on city property. Right. Yes, but so that's why the IGA will provide the city's grant to the districts of the easements, and that's how then we kind of create the loop, if you will.

Okay, that's helpful. I'd like to see the projections for the mills. That would be helpful. I can get that to you. And then all of these mills will be paid by all of the landowners, but also the future tenants in any high-rise housing development too. Correct.

So all landowners, future landowners within the property. So it wouldn't be tenants individually. They're not charged something different because of the fact that they're tenants, right? All of the charges for metropolitan districts. But condo owners. It would be condo owners. That's right. Everything that is associated with ownership would, in fact, have a mill associated with it.

Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, committee chair.

Thank you. Councilman Watson?

Thank you so much, Committee Chair. I just wanted to share, I thank you all for the briefings, the many, many, many that we've had. I know we had lots of questions because this is important. Thank you for the thoughtfulness. Obviously, we're going to have more specific questions, if anyone, when we can read through the IJA, but this is specific to this presentation here. the thoughtfulness of the bridge design and the inclusive process. There are many stressors on getting this done quickly on the team, but as you look at the balance that you've provided in design and safety and even the types of plants and trees under the bridge so folks aren't being in spaces that we would not recommend. It has been thoughtfully done. Council Member Hines has provided lots of very clear direction on the rent and how folks with different abilities, folks in wheelchairs, how are they going to actually convey across All those are incorporated, the lack of having the elevators, all of that is fantastic. I run the Millennium Bridge most weekends as part of my run from my house up towards Councilwoman Sandoval's district. So I love bridges, I'm always on them, but they're not always as accessible for everyone. And I think this one is. don't have material questions at this point we'll have those within the iga but just wanted to put my voice in there and saying i you have listened um i know if you've met with folks as many times as you've met with me i've seen most of the things that i we've communicated i see it included at least in this description here and then i'll read through the iga and see if there's any deeper dives but i do appreciate the thoughtfulness of this and looking forward to this iconic addition to Denver being completed. So those are just my thoughts, but look forward to engaging in more thoughtful discussion on the IGA. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you so much. The beginning of this bridge conversation, I was not a huge fan. It felt like a waste of money. It felt like a pivot away from a very serious problem, which was pedestrian access on the street. Then we got into, I think, even landing on railroad land. This has come a really long way. And I think part of that was also getting on the same page about what makes a great bridge a great bridge. Because I think we learned a lot, particularly from Council President Sandoval, about where there have been issues, where there's been friction. Actually walking some of these bridges to find out what could have been improved in different kinds of bridge design. And you took all that back and made this a really responsive and better piece of infrastructure that also looks like art and something really uniquely Denver. And, you know, even before I think we were getting to I think that better point, I know I was hearing from lower downtown folks who were like, we really appreciate what this gives. And so I've been encouraged over all of these moves that this is a better solution than when we first started this conversation. So I just really want to thank your team, all of the folks that are here for the work that's gone into really hearing and responding to all of that work. I'm sorry we have this hiccup with the IGA language. I don't think it creates too much of an issue because we still have something else to approve in the coming weeks. And I said the wrong date before, it's July 22nd, that we'll see you back here for the actual easement conversation. What I will also say is there's been really impressive discussion about access about what kind of infrastructure feels inviting and welcoming to folks in a variety of different kinds of contexts. If you're pushing a stroller, if you're in a wheelchair, if you're walking, whatever that might look like. I think this definitely brings that much closer to home. I just want to thank you for that and this feels like a public bridge that serves a really good purpose. So, thank you so much. I don't think I have other major questions or concerns. I will just clarify the fines or fees that are paid for tree removal, they go to the general fund. So if you have questions about that, probably Nicole is a good person to talk to on that piece. When the prior development agreement and the Metro districts were created, that regional mill allocation, I think Kristen had this in mind, right? Like that was what it was intended, it was created to provide the funding for. Because one thing that was adamant in the conversations that we had was that This never falls on the city to have to maintain. That should not be something that we look at 25 years down the line going, oh, who's supposed to fix that lighting or anything? It is always going to be the Metro District. So there is always that responsible party for that piece. So that was also something that I appreciate that you really listened to. So I don't have additional questions. Councilman Hines?

I was going to move to delay 26-0923 to a date certain July 1st.

Correct. Delay, postpone. Yeah. Either one else, thank you for that motion. I'll take second. Thank you, Councilman Obeid.

One last question. Sure. One last question. How do you name a bridge? So is this going to be the Wine Group Crossing Bridge? I don't think so. I hope not. Because, like, you are right next to Manny's bridge, so I went back to your slide deck, right? And we have the bridge. There's actually, I think I'm going to speak out my lane, but I think there's actually a process process in public works to name a bridge. And I would really like you, I would really consider and suggest. you name this bridge because then on google maps it will be named and anywhere you go like if people go like anywhere you can put it in your google and you can walk to that bridge and then you can go and instagram everyone can say where's that bridge and it's literally named um i kept looking through it through the iga because i'm reading the iga so i'm looking for the name and i don't see one so i would really maybe you can come and brief us in a little bit and put your creative juices all together and ask the owners to be that but i have a project for you this needs to be a really great amazing named bridge so we have it sandoval span I know that was a very sound of all question to ask. But now it's a cliffhanger.

We can't usually name things after living people. Just a heads up. Okay, we have a motion and a second. All those in favor?

Aye. Anyone opposed?

Okay, so just so you know, it's going on next week's South Platte River Committee agenda. We don't meet, so it's always a consent agenda. So unless you hear from us by Wednesday, close of business, that somebody's pulled it off for a question, then you'll stay on that consent agenda. But I would encourage my colleagues, if you have questions, reach out to Andy or Steven to see if they're easy to answer. Otherwise, let me know if you need to pull it from consent. Okay. And we don't have anything on this meeting's consent agenda, so we are adjourned.

Awesome. Thank you. Good meeting.