The Big Picture

Text from the Stapleton Development Plan:

Stapleton’s open space system builds on Denver’s rich park legacy of traditional community parks and recreation facilities, parkways and greenbelts connecting neighborhoods, natural features defining the city and a visionary string of mountain parks. The Plan also expands our traditional ideas of a park with its High Plains landscape restoration, extensive natural systems, and commitment to water quality, wildlife and habitat development. The Stapleton open space system is a blend of the best of Denver’s past and present parks and a new attention to Denver’s lost landscapes and critical need for environmental stewardship.

Approximately 35 percent of the Stapleton site will be devoted to some form of open space. This system will serve a variety of goals for Denver, including:

1. Contributing to a dramatic change in the physical appearance and identity of the Stapleton site. The investment in open space will not only increase adjacent property values, it will expand market opportunities, create long-term value and provide each new neighborhood with an identifiable center and defined edges.
2. Meeting local and regional demand for open space and recreation opportunities. As important, Stapleton enables Denver to provide major, specialized recreation facilities for the city at large that it cannot provide elsewhere. These facilities include a lighted outdoor sports complex, golf courses, agricultural and equestrian facilities and a large urban park for northeast Denver.
3. Complementing the classic urban park system of the City and County, the mountain park system on the west, with a bold regional system on the east that celebrates the original Denver landscape of High Plains plants, water and animals. The Stapleton system will support the restoration of natural systems on site and establish and maintain extensive wildlife habitat.
4. Providing cost effective and environmentally beneficial approaches to water management on site. The open space system is designed to accommodate all of the site’s stormwater management and 100-year flood control requirements. The system also uses natural filtration, constructed wetlands, water reuse and other techniques to improve water quality and minimize the use of scarce water resources for irrigation.
5. Reconnecting Stapleton to the rest of the city and region. Major regional trail connections will be provided between Stapleton and the Platee River and High Line Canal trail sytems, Lowry Air Force Base, the Rocky Mountian Arsenal National Wildlife Area and adjacent neighborhoods. These trail linkages, along with extensions of Denver’s historic parkways, will greatly encourage pedestrian and bicycle travel.

Approximately 35 percent of the Stapleton will be devoted to parks, recreation and open space.

Approximately 1,680 acres of the Plan is devoted to some form of park, open space or stormwater management. The breakdown of components of the system is roughly as follows:

• Formal parks (neighborhood and large urban). 250-275 acres. This commitment to formal parks is comparable to the ratio of parklands to resident in other portions of Denver.
• Special facilities (outdoor sports complex, golf courses, agricultural center). 350-400 acres.
• Natural areas, creek and trail corridors and floodplain (Sand Creek, Westerly Creek, Sand Hills Park). 600-650 acres.
• Parkways and greenways carrying stormwater. 375-425 acres.

NOTE: Double counting of open space acreage occurs when areas perform multiple functions.