CENTENNIAL, Colo. — They brought out a custom-built sandbox to hold the dirt.
They also brought out Sean Payton and gave him a hard hat and shovel.
The head coach joined owners Greg Penner and Carrie Walton Penner and general manager George Paton for the groundbreaking ceremony of the $175 million training center complex on a gorgeous Thursday morning at Broncos Park Powered by CommonSpirit.
Tighten up the head shells. Dig! Toss!
What’s striking about building a new facility is the current one, built in 1990, is still one of the best in the NFL. Ask the Kansas City Chiefs and all those former New Orleans Saints who followed Payton to Denver.
So why build a new one?
“The one we’ve been in right behind us for 34 years has served us really well,’’ Penner said in a sit-down interview with 9NEWS minutes after the groundbreaking ceremony. “But what we’ve found was a number of the spaces that were designed were just too small, especially the locker room.
“The player path of travel, right now they have three separate buildings that they go to with our weight room and practice facility (Pat Bowlen Fieldhouse). This is going to be an opportunity to bring everything together for the football players, upgrade the spaces, all the sports performance areas.
“And then bring a lot of our business folks down from the stadium (Empower Field at Mile High) into one building. Which we think will help us create a collaborative environment.”
The new facility is scheduled to open prior to the 2026 training camp.
The renovation and new build will include a massive excavating project where the fan-occupied grassy berm will be flattened and rebuilt on the other side of the field while the headquarters and locker room will be flipped to where the berm is now.
“We’re probably sitting somewhere near my new office,’’ team president Damani Leech said with a smile in his sit-down interview with 9NEWS from the concourse area behind the current berm. “Yes, everything will be flipped. I think operationally that’s what made the most sense. We wanted to be less disruptive to football. So we’re able to build over here.
“It will be loud at certain points. Visually it will be less pleasing to look at the construction site for a year-and-a-half. But for the most part the staff, the players, their routine will be largely unchanged.”
As for fans watching training camp in 2025 with construction about halfway done?
“We’re still working on that,’’ Leech said. “The leader in the clubhouse is probably put some temporary stands in the parking lot (off the current team lobby). It will be a little smaller (seating capacity) so less fans out to practice on a daily basis. But that’s probably the most likely outcome.”
The Walton-Penner group has put vast resources into the team in its still young period as Broncos’ owners. The $2 billion or so question is, what is going on with the decision to build a new stadium?
“We continue to invest in the current stadium and we want that to be a great experience for our fans,’’ Penner said. “We made some really nice improvements this offseason. No update on the future stadium. We continue to look at different options, including the current site. It’s a complex decision and we want to get it right. We’re going to take our time and at some point we’ll be excited to announce something.”
In the meantime, the Walton-Penner group continue to make upgrades at the current stadium, Empower Field. Not visible to the fans, but important to the players, is a new family room added to the stadium's ground floor. This came after a players' union survey in which Broncos players complained about not having a family room for their spouses and children on game day.
“We want to support our players and their families and that was one piece of feedback that came out of the survey that was really helpful for us,'' Penner said. "We’re always going to listen to those things and see if we have an opportunity to improve and get better and that was a place that we thought an upgrade made sense. It’s going to give our players’ families a place where they can come together on game day, especially if there’s inclement weather.”
