Planners unveil long-range Midtown Centennial vision; public engagement and infrastructure studies planned

City planning staff on Jan. 22 gave the Planning and Zoning Commission an overview of Midtown Centennial — a long-range visioning effort to guide redevelopment of roughly 418 acres in the I‑25 corridor — and described next steps including consultant work, an economic/fiscal analysis, sewer‑capacity modeling and expanded community outreach.

“Long range planning allows for the city to cast a long‑term vision for an area,” Senior Planner David King told the commission, explaining the purpose of the exercise and why the city is updating older guidance for the corridor. King said the Midtown concept grew from Centennial Next (the city’s comprehensive plan) and recent Land Development Code amendments and noted that the work does not set immediate land‑use decisions but does create a framework for future regulatory steps.

Senior Planner Jenna Campbell described Civitas’s role in creating an urban‑design framework focused on the public realm — parks, pedestrian connections, multimodal streets and branding. Campbell said Civitas distilled four guiding principles for Midtown: “authentic Midtown” (a unique Centennial identity), “connected Midtown” (multimodal and pedestrian networks, including Chester Street as a spine), “vibrant Midtown” (placemaking and public spaces), and “resilient Midtown” (long‑term fiscal and environmental resilience).

Staff framed the economic and market context: Midtown contains many aging office buildings built for a pre‑pandemic commuting model. The Denver South study and staff slides cited a roughly 24% vacancy rate in the Midtown geography (2024) and an approximate 18% vacancy rate across the broader I‑25 corridor in earlier measures. City staff noted newer office product in the region has far lower vacancy (about 4.6%), and consultants will examine how demand and land‑use change could affect city revenues and service capacity.

To inform those analyses, Centennial has engaged EPS (a national planning and economic consulting firm) to conduct a fiscal and development‑demand study and will model sanitary sewer capacity with Southgate Water & Sanitation District. Campbell said the City won a DRCOG Livable Center Program grant (no local match) to focus analysis on the East Side of Midtown.

Design concepts presented by Civitas include new linear parks and greenways, enhanced crossings of I‑25, and a network of smaller multimodal streets to knit older office parcels into walkable, mixed‑use blocks. King and Campbell emphasized that the project team is prioritizing the public‑realm framework (streets, parks, gateways, wayfinding) rather than specifying exact parcel‑level land uses at this stage.

Staff outlined public‑engagement plans: a project webpage and an interactive MapIT tool where residents can annotate locations and suggest parks or uses; presentations to neighborhood and HOA groups; outreach to utilities and service providers; and targeted meetings with adjacent jurisdictions. Campbell said the outreach effort will be broader than a typical development project because Midtown spans many parcels, landowners and stakeholders.

Commissioners asked about metrics, infrastructure limits and timing. King said EPS’s fiscal work will inform measurable targets for reinvestment and help answer questions such as whether Midtown’s conversion from office to mixed uses will change peak population, city service demands, or budget outcomes. On infrastructure, staff said water supply is not the limiting factor but sewer capacity is the primary technical constraint; the Southgate modeling will identify pipe and pump upgrades needed to accommodate denser residential uses.

Next steps: Civitas will continue design work; EPS will complete the fiscal analysis; DRCOG‑funded East Side work will begin; the city plans robust outreach in Q1–Q2 2025; and staff expects to return with a Midtown sub‑area plan (to update the now‑outdated 2013 I‑25 sub‑area plan) that can inform LDC amendments, overlay districts and targeted rezonings.