View Plane Ordinance Followup

Judy’s bill on the Coors Field view plane moved out of committee yesterday on a unanimous vote. It now heads for consideration by the full Council.

In addition, the idea picked up another formal RNO endorsement yesterday, from Platte River Cuernavaca Park. The tally now stands at 6 RNOs in support, with none in opposition.

A couple of articles in today’s papers mentioned the objections of one property owner, Focus Property Group, to the proposed view plane. Summarizing Focus’s key concern, the Denver Daily News reported:

There is also concern that the view plane would devalue the property, which would work to the District’s advantage if it were to try to acquire the property from Focus for use by the ballpark. The issue has come up after District officials purchased another piece of property [owned by Bill and Paula Leake at 2010 Delgany] it feared might block the view of the mountains.

Two points of clarification are in order. First, Judy and the Stadium District have taken steps to prevent the scenario described above —- ie, wherein the District would try to buy the Focus property on the cheap, after its value was driven down by the view plane ordinance. To protect Focus from this situation, the District issued a written statement pledging that any negotiations for the purchase of Focus’s property would be based on the same “fair market” conditions that were applied recently to the Ballpark District’s purchase of the Leakes’ property at 2010 Delgany Street — before establishment of the view plane. In fact, the purchase of the Leake property was based on property valuations from 2007, before the real estate bubble popped. So Focus can count on a fair and attractive offer for its property if the District ever decides to make a bid.

And that leads to the second point of clarification: Any purchase of Focus’s property for use by the ballpark remains strictly hypothetical at this point. The ballpark won’t know if it has any use/need for the property until after RTD determines exactly which of the existing stadium parking lots will be eliminated to make room for the FasTracks buildout. This determination is still 18 to 24 months away. So if the Ballpark District were to make an offer on the Focus property, it wouldn’t happen until 2011 at the earliest — but the property valuation will be based on a pre-view-plane market.