Glendale 180 Next Year? Color Us As Skeptical — For Now
Denver media recently hyped that the eating and entertainment district along Cherry Creek near Virginia Avenue known as Glendale 180 is once again right around the corner. Channel 7 News declared that the “city could break ground as early as next year.”
Deputy City Manager Chuck Line is quoted in a February 19, 2018, story in The Denver Post about the project: “Before, we were barely getting out of the driveway, and now we’re definitely driving down the interstate.”
Oh, pleaseeeeee! Members of this Editorial Board were instrumental in envisioning The Glendale Riverwalk which was later retitled Glendale 180 as far back as 2003. Since then, every few years the city has publicly announced that a groundbreaking would occur in the next 12 to 18 months.
Of course, it is not entirely the city’s fault. After an announcement that the city was envisioning building a Riverwalk modeled after the one in San Antonio, Texas, Mohammad Ali Kheirkhahi and his family who own Authentic Persian and Oriental Rugs rushed out and outbid the city for the 3.8 acres of developable land fronting Colorado Boulevard from longtime owner Jimmy O’Connor.
Grossly overpaying for the land, Kheirkhahi and his family apparently hoped to hold up the city for over three times what they paid for it. When the city declined, they went out and asserted the city was threatening eminent domain and organized potentially violent marches with the para-military groups like the Oath Keepers and others in an attempt to cow the City Council.
When that failed, the rug merchants brought a series of highly expensive lawsuits utilizing some of the most expensive lawyers in Colorado and the nation to stop any d
evelopment on land other than theirs. Having lost those lawsuits after spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, Kheirkhahi and his kin have filed numerous questionable ethics complaints with the highly dubious Independent Ethics Commission.
But the rug merchants may have finally outsmarted themselves. At their request the Kheirkhahi land was excluded out of Glendale’s Downtown Development Authority. Thus any development on their land cannot by law receive any tax increment financing. Because of that fact Kheirkhahi’s land is now worth a great deal less to any potential purchaser.
Having beaten back the rug merchant’s vicious attempts to destroy Glendale 180, the city has now entered into a Development Agreement with the highly regarded Lincoln Properties. But that is only the first step, and not the last, in getting Glendale 180 to become a reality. The next crucial step is agreeing to a “Financing Agreement” whereby the parties concur on how to pay for everything. Many a project in Colorado has died due to disagreements on who and how everything is going to be paid.
If that huge hurdle can be overcome, Lincoln Properties must submit a Site Plan for the land which would meet the public’s approval and garner a majority of the City Council. Even if that is obtained there is no assurance that the bonds and other financing instruments envisioned by the “Financing Agreement” can be successfully marketed. That will in part depend on how Colorado’s economy is doing when the city goes to the financial markets.
Thus, with all due respect to Mr. Line, we are afraid the city is hardly cruising along the highway to the destination of a completed project but rather Glendale has but simply left the driveway. When a “Financing Agreement” has been signed and a “Site Plan” approved, talk of a possible groundbreaking ceremony becomes viable, but even then, by no means assured.
We will let our readers know from time to time how Glendale and Lincoln Properties are doing regarding their goal of getting to a completed project. Excessive hype in the early stages of an actual project is not always helpful. Congratulations to Glendale and Lincoln Properties on the Development Agreement, but a great deal of hard rowing still awaits all involved.
— Editorial Board
