Forest City Stapleton Plans to Create New Business Park

By Gabriel Circiog, Associate Editor

A large business development is shaping up on Interstate 70 between downtown Denver and Denver International Airport, The Denver Post reports. Developer Forest City Stapleton aims to create an area similar to the Denver Tech Center, with office buildings ranging in height from three to 12 stories. President of Forest City Stapleton, John Lehigh, said the company aspires to develop 10 million square feet.

At the moment, Stapleton is home to a couple of businesses and agencies including a solar company, the FBI and a food distributor. Drury Hotels is planning to break ground either this autumn or next spring on a 180-room, eight- or nine-story hotel—while the Southwest Council of Carpenters has already purchased 13 acres of land to develop a 150,000-square-foot office and training facility. Although Forest City doesn’t have any new tenants or companies lined up, Lehigh hopes to change that in the next six to 12 months.

Forest City Stapleton broke ground on the development on May 3, 2001 and welcomed the first resident in the summer of 2002. The company estimates around 11,000 people are currently living in Stapleton, and although Forest City Stapleton planned from the very beginning for the site to be a mixed-use community with a considerable amount of commercial and office space, the plan was not feasible until recently. The game-changer is the I-70/Central Park Boulevard interchange, while the FasTracks East rail line is also expected to have a major impact in attracting new businesses upon completion in 2016.

The interchange opened in October, and the Central Park segment—which leads south into Stapleton—will open in the coming days. The I-70/ Central Park Boulevard interchange will offer access to 300 acres of land on either sides of it. Forest City will provide its own equity for the project, Lehigh said.

Photo Courtesy of: www.stapletondenver.com

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