Page 12
— Land & Development Quarterly — July 2016
Project Profile
L
one Tree’s RidgeGate com-
munity, annexed into the city
in 2000, recently celebrated
its 15th year of development
with the groundbreaking of
the southeast light-rail extension,
which brings three new light-rail
stations to Lone Tree within the
RidgeGate community. The transfor-
mational RidgeGate project began
in 1972 with the
acquisition of 3,500
acres that straddle
Interstate 25 south
of Lincoln Avenue
and has already
has become the
southern gateway
into metro Denver.
After a long and
patient hold period
(the land was car-
ried without debt),
Coventry Devel-
opment Corp.,
which is the prop-
erty owners’ asset
manager and real estate developer,
believed it was time to wake up
the sleeping giant in response to
growth in the metro Denver area
and an opportunity to land a major
employer as an engine to drive the
community’s development. Since
then, RidgeGate has accomplished
several important public-private
partnerships for major infrastruc-
ture projects and is now nearing
completion of its West Village – 1
square mile that has demonstrated
the appeal of a walkable, mixed-use
environment and “complete com-
munity” to enhance the lives of its
residents and provide employers
competitive advantages not found
elsewhere.
So what were the critical factors
that have led to the success of the
RidgeGate community?
Location and patience.
RidgeGate
Investments Inc. (then known
as Colony) had the foresight and
ability to purchase 3,500 acres of
undeveloped land straddling I-25
in the apparent path of growth
(even though at that time there
wasn’t much south of Hampden
Avenue). Part of the land is served
by the Southgate Water & Sanita-
tion District and the remainder was
included into the Parker Water &
Sanitation District (to which the
property’s significant water rights
were conveyed).
Coventry also manages and will
develop the adjacent 1,500 acres
immediately south of RidgeGate
on the east side of I-25 stretching
to the Castle Pines Parkway Inter-
change (which is still in unincor-
porated Douglas County) and over-
looking the Reuter Hess Reservoir.
Interestingly, the land’s previ-
ous owner was George Wallace, the
developer of the Denver Tech Center
(Wallace had a vision of this land as
Denver Tech Center II with moving
walkways and other futuristic ele-
ments).
Since the basis in the land was
low and there was no debt on the
land, the decision was made to hold
the land out of development until
it had become more of an infill site
capable of achieving high land val-
ues and sustaining a robust pace of
development.
So for almost 30 years (and still
today on undeveloped portions), the
land was kept in agricultural pro-
duction to keep the tax bill low.
Partnership between city and
developer on a community vision and
appropriate zoning.
In 1999, several
factors converged that led to Cov-
entry’s conclusion that it might be
time to move forward with commu-
nity activation. Several communi-
ties had contacted Coventry about
annexing the property into their
municipality. In the end, it became
clear that a partnership with Lone
Tree provided the greatest align-
ment of goals and objectives.
So in fall 2000, after about nine
months of master-planning work
by Design Workshop (which cre-
ated the master plan) and a vote
of the Lone Tree electorate, which
was required by the city charter to
annex land east of I-25, the entire
3,500 acres was annexed into Lone
Tree and planned development
district zoning was approved with
40-year vesting. This gave Lone Tree
an “address” on I-25 and plenty
of room to grow – the annexation
more than doubled the geographic
size of Lone Tree and probably qua-
druples its residential and business
population.
Lone Tree shared Coventry’s vision
for the property as an integrated
mixed-use community with a more
urban character and vitality not
often found in the suburbs at that
time. And the planned development
district zoning allows for mixed use
in most locations with flexibility to
adapt to changing market condi-
tions over the project’s long devel-
opment horizon.
The PDD zoning also commits
about 30 percent of the land for
parks and open space use to com-
plement the compact development
and it is organized in way to be
highly integrated with the develop-
ment areas to easily connect people
with nature.
Subarea plans (another level of
city regulatory plan as called for
in the PDD), with some additional
qualitative guidelines, supplement
the PDD for geographic districts
and/or product types and then
individual projects prepare site
improvement plans or plats (for
single-family residential).
The fact that so much land use
entitlement happened in such a
short period of time is a testament
to the shared vision between Lone
Tree and Coventry and a welcome
signal to the development commu-
nity.
Financing foundations.
Colorado’s
Title 32 Statute provides for special
taxing districts to help new develop-
ment “pay its way” for required new
infrastructure since cities like Lone
Tree do not want to assume that
financial burden.
In 2001, Coventry formed the
Rampart Range Metropolitan Dis-
trict to support the development
of the RidgeGate community. This
enabled the RRMD to receive several
revenue streams, including property
tax, system development fees, sales
tax sharing with Lone Tree and a
private-covenant-enabled public
improvement fee that it uses to
finance and maintain public infra-
structure in the community. RRMD
arranges for taxable and tax-exempt
financing with the developer and
banks and from time to time issues
bonds to institutional investors.
RidgeGate Investments Inc. has
provided significant capital advanc-
es to the RRMD to help preservice
the community infrastructure.
This model has worked and today
RidgeGate has a fully serviced West
Village supported by over $200 mil-
lion in assessed valuation that is
expected to exceed $300 million by
2025.
RRMD is managed by CLA and its
legal counsel is McGeady Becher.
The district engineer is Merrick &
Co.
Transportation foundations and
public-private partnerships.
Critical
to the success of any community
is transportation mobility and con-
nectivity. RidgeGate has been work-
ing on these foundations since 1999
when we engaged with the Colo-
rado Department of Transportation
as they were studying the south I-25
corridor.
The result of that engagement
was a public-private partnership
to fund (with over $15 million in
land and cash from RidgeGate and
the RRMD) and build the RidgeGate
Parkway Interchange, which opened
in 2009 (10 years later). Also at this
same time, Douglas County built
Havana Street from the Castle Pines
Interchange to RidgeGate Parkway
to make an important regional con-
nection.
A few years later, Douglas County,
Lone Tree and Coventry collaborated
to extend RidgeGate Parkway to the
town of Parker and to complete the
Peoria Street connection to Ridge-
Gate Parkway in order to relieve
congestion occurring on Lincoln
Avenue east of I-25. This inter-
change also created the vehicular
accessibility upon which Coventry
approached the Regional Trans-
portation District with the idea of
extending the southeast light-rail
line approximately 2 miles to the
southeast corner of I-25 and Ridge-
Gate Parkway with an ideal end-of-
line commuter station. In 2004, this
extension was included in RTD’s
FasTracks Program and approved by
voters.
Now, 12 years later, the extension
has broken ground due in part to an
unprecedented local funding match
put together by Lone Tree, Douglas
County, Denver South Transpor-
tation Management Association
and RidgeGate/RRMD whereby an
unprecedented 12 percent of the
total project cost is locally funded
to supplement a $92 million Federal
Transit Administration grant. The
remainder of the project cost is paid
by RTD.
The southeast extension will open
in late 2018 with three stations in
RidgeGate – one on the west side
of I-25 just north of the Sky Ridge
Medical Center and two on the east
side of I-25, including the end-of-
line commuter station with a 1,300-
car garage at RidgeGate Parkway
and an urban station in the Lone
Tree City Center. This extension
and the three stations are a “game
changer” for RidgeGate in that over
350 acres of development land is
now within walking distance of a
light-rail station.
In the meantime, Lone Tree has
operated a very successful (over
Keith D. Simon
Executive vice
president, Coventry
Development
Corp., Lone Tree
An aerial look at the West Village, part of the 3,500-acre RidgeGate community
