Denver Leverages Private Funds to Secure Stimulus Dollars for Interchange Project

In development on the site of the city’s former international airport, the Central Park Boulevard Interstate 70 interchange is a project that became possible to complete with the help of $12 million in funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, with the remainder being funded through revenues from the Better Denver Bond Program and Forest City Stapleton Inc., the local division of Forest City Enterprises.

Denver Deputy Mayor and Manager of Public Works Guillermo “Bill” Vidal believes that the partnership between the city, state, Forest City and other agencies to leverage private money for stimulus dollars is quite unique.

“I’m not aware of any other instances in which this has been done,” said Vidal. “This is exactly what stimulus dollars are supposed to do: bring together public and private partners to fund projects that will impact the whole region and have positive economic benefits.”

However, this didn’t come without challenges.

In total, Denver received approximately $300 million in infrastructure stimulus money, but most of the funds were used for Colorado Department of Transportation projects. Therefore, the I-70 interchange project needed money from the Denver Regional Council of Governments (DRCOG), which received $55 million in federal stimulus funds.

Since the city was able to assemble $30 million for the interchange from its Better Denver Bond Program to go along with $9 million in federal transportation dollars, the challenge was to come up with the remaining $31 million to complete the $70 million project.  

“That’s when our private sector partners at Forest City agreed to provide $19 million for the access roads to the interchange if we were able to convince DRCOG to fund the remaining $12 million,” Vidal explained. “With its approval of those funds, DRCOG then put the last piece of the funding solution into place.”

For Denver, whose projects were among the first of local governments' to be approved for federal recovery dollars, the interchange project is critical in maximizing the full potential of the area by connecting the residential and commercial area to the shopping mall and other developing commercial areas.

“Stapleton was like a hole within a donut,” said John Lehigh, president of Forest City Stapleton Inc. “The interchange will connect Stapleton north and the south of I-70. … We recognized several years ago that the interchange is an important vision to create a mixed-use urban community where there’s easy access to the jobs, retail and schools that were created where the airport closed.”

Another challenge that the city has encountered is tight time frames in the process before construction.

With competition for the limited amount of available stimulus money, the city had to show that it was ready to start construction of the interchange immediately. Team members pushed completion of environmental studies forward and quickly cleared the right-of-way and moved utilities.

“Thanks to the city’s efforts to make us ready to go, it was a nice merging to make the city shovel-ready in a short period of time,” said Lehigh.

The I-70 interchange, which will include six “through lanes” and two “turn lanes” and is expected to carry 50,000 vehicles daily, has been part of a long-term plan to serve the needs of Stapleton residents and businesses. Besides reducing congestion, the interchange will potentially generate construction jobs and additional economic benefits to the local and regional economy.

“The Central Park Boulevard interchange project truly embodies the principles of what stimulus dollars are meant to do, especially in terms of economic impacts and job creation,” Vidal said.

The interchange project is expected to be complete in 2013.