COLORADO:Business Park Sponsors NW Parkway Toll Road

The Interlocken group which is developing a large business park northwest of Denver CO has put up most of the money to kick off a new toll road called the Northwest Parkway (NW Pwy). The new pike will likely be financed as a standalone road linking the Interlocken development in the city of Broomfield on US-36 (the old Denver-Boulder Turnpike) northeasterly to I-25 at the point where a final stage of the E470 pike is due to terminate.

Interlocken and the city of Broomfield are supporting the new toll road principally to improve connections to easterly developments and to I-25 and points north, but when the E-470 toll road abuts it the two pikes will, together with the free C470 form a 7/8ths complete beltway around the Denver metro area. The city of Golden firmly opposes construction of the missing one-eighth west of Denver.

The NW Pwy will be 17km (10.5mi) long and together with the final stage of E470 will provide a convenient new east-west route between Boulder, Broomfield and other northerly areas and Denver International Airport. (The obvious numbering for the NW Pwy is B-470 which both Boulder and Broomfield can claim stands for them. NW-470 just doesn’t trip off the tongue.)

Heading up the NW Pwy effort is Stephen D Hogan who recently resigned from his position of Exec-Director of the E470 Public Highway Authority in order to work for the new toll road. He is a contract employee of a temporary non-profit called Northwest Parkway Non Profit Corp with a board of four members, three appointed by the city of Broomfield, one by the Interlocken group. Interlocken has advanced $1.15m and the city $100k to pay for preliminary work.

Hogan, who is working out of Interlocken offices for now, told us his job is to identify what kind of permanent entity is best suited to managing development of the toll road: “It may be a public tollway authority like E470, a non-profit, or an investor supported for-profit. One of my immediate jobs is to recommend the best permanent vehicle to carry this forward.”

Hogan is also doing initial contracting for preliminary engineering, public involvement and land use in a first phase. In the second phase with a permanent corporate form he’d contract for more engineering design, traffic and revenue studies, environmental permitting, and land acquisition. Local authorities have held from development a general right of way corridor as much as 2km wide. Hogan says there is strong local sentiment in favor of preserving this as wild open space, and the highway will need to be carefully designed and positioned within the alignment to gain political support.

Hogan’s program is to be in a position to do a design-build contract or a traditional design, bid and build contract in the fall of 2000.

The route presents few construction difficulties — no serious watercourses, flattish to rolling country. By our estimate the 17km road of 2x2-lanes would have either 3 or 4 intermediate interchanges, and would probably cost in the range $100m to $130m. The precise figure could depend a lot on whether the state will contribute to the end interchanges at US-36 and I-25 and on the environmental mitigation costs.

The E470 Authority, temporarily being run by former chief finance officer, Pamela Bailey, is considering design-build-finance bids on a final northern section of 20km from the end of current construction near Denver airport northwesterly to I-25, where the NW Pwy would start. Hogan said he wouldn’t be surprised if there were delays in building this stage and that his NW Pwy pike might be opened first. (It’s a race, guys!)

E470 is due to have a continuous 55km open from near Denver airport south and then west by July 99 for an investment of nearly $400m. The final northern 20km is more difficult, involving long bridges over the wide floodplains of the South Platte R, Big Dry Creek and railroads. It is thought likely to cost around $250m and some say it is a bit far ahead of development for toll traffic to fully fund it (see TRnl#29 Jul 98 p13).

Interlocken

Curt Smith of Interlocken told us the NW Pwy project has always been on county and city plans but was dormant and that his group took the initiative “to breath some life into the thing.” He says Interlocken hopes the toll road will be self-financing and that his group does not wish to get into the business of investing in or running a toll road. They are just putting up the first money to start the project moving and hope it will now take off on its own.

Interlocken is privately owned by a cotton growing family. It has 963 acres half of which is developed with offices and research labs and plans on building over 10m sq ft of floor space of which about half is complete. The biggest name tenant is Sun Microsystems. A familiar firm moving into Interlocken from Omaha NE is Level 3 Communications, the Kiewit subsidiary that has the major share in 91X in Calif, but which is now concentrating on telecommunications. (It seems they just can’t get away from toll roads?) Another major development that will need and support the NW Pwy is Flatirons a regional shopping mall being built next door.

Old Boulder pike

Interlocken and the end of the NW Pwy pike lie right alongside US-36 which was built to motorway standard as the Denver-Boulder Turnpike, opening in 1952. It was Colorado’s proudest highway, the wonder of the mountain west at the time, built to the detailed design of R. N. Bergendorf who is the “B” in what is now the large engineering firm of HNTB. Called stuff like “the Magic Carpet to Progress,” “Tomorrow’s Highway Today” and “The Short Line to the Skyline” the Denver-Boulder Turnpike was received in the mountain west with all the excitement and extravagant acclaim that had greeted the Pennyslvania Turnpike in 1940 as the first “super highway” to open in the east. Boulder thrived as a result of the superb new connection to Denver. The toll of 25c lasted until 1967 when all the bonds used to finance it were paid off and the turnpike was made free.

Nowadays US-36 carries over 50k veh/weekday which often strains its original 2x2-lane format. A major investment study is being conducted on the corridor to look at alternative improvements. A 0.4c sales tax in the area to fund US-36 improvements failed in a regional ballot in 1997. So the old turnpike could be tolled again to fund a 2x3-lane arrangement or there could be scope for a toll express lane, though there is much distracting talk of rail transit also from a vocal ‘green’ establishment in Boulder. Broomfield is interested in two new interchanges on US-36 and there has been discussion of investor funding of these. (Contact Steve Hogan NW Pwy 303 466 0567, Kirk Oglesby City of Broomfield 303 438 5303, Pamela Bailey E470 Auth 303 773 9588, Curt Smith Interlocken 303 466 9799 www.interlocken.com Thanks Debra Baskett of GO-Boulder for historical notes.)