DENVER — The National Western Center takes up an impressive 80 acres just northwest of I-70 and Brighton Boulevard in Denver. By 2024 that number will swell to massive 250 acres.
“The stockyards today have been there for over a hundred years,” says the CEO of the National Western Center Authority Brad Buchanan. “In five years there will still be stockyards, but there will also be a 500,000-square-foot equestrian center and a 200,000-plus-square-foot livestock center, and a stockyards events center.”
In 2015, Denver voters approved increasing Denver’s debt by $778,000,000 and indefinitely extending a 1.75 percent tourism tax to improve the NaWesternwestern Center and Colorado Convention Center. Construction is just getting underway at the National Western Center, but they’re already thinking ahead about how to use the new facilities.
“The mission of the National Western Center is to create a global hub around Western heritage and global food production,” says Buchanan. “There’s a lot of ways to implement that vision.”
They launched the Cultivate Project to learn what people in the community want to see come to the National Western Center.
“We’re asking residents from Denver, Colorado, the United States, and around the globe what they want to see happen here,” says Buchanan. “What are their ideas for innovation, regenerative agriculture, sustainability, global food production, and entertainment?”
It’s tough to imagine the old hay stalls currently inhabiting the space becoming a massive complex of all things Western, but Buchanan says it’s something they need to start as soon as they can.
“This is not a build it and they will come situation. This is a build it, build it, build it, and it will already be here when we open the gates.”