The City and County of Denver’s Performance-Based Infrastructure Office (PBI) is taking the next step toward developing the southeast side of the National Western Center (NWC) campus, known as the Triangle Project, with the initial release of a draft request for proposals (RFP).

The Triangle refers to a triangle-shaped, 60-acre area on the southeast side of the National Western Center campus. The city is looking for a development partner to design, build, finance, operate and maintain public facilities, including:

• restoration of the 1909 Stadium Arena;
• construction of an exposition hall; and
• construction of a new, mid-size arena for the National Western Stock Show rodeos, concerts, and other year-round entertainment events.

The Draft RFP for the Triangle project will go through four rounds of drafts before it is reissued as the Final RFP in the Summer of 2020. A key benefit of this approach, and the public release of the Draft RFP, is the ability to seek and incorporate multiple points of input from the community and City Council into the final RFP. Beginning in January 2020, the city will use a variety of meetings and input sessions, both existing and new, to outreach to, communicate with and gather feedback from the community and City Council as it works to craft and release a final RFP. The RFP will be scored on the best value basis with technical, financial and community equity requirements.

The Technical Proposal Submission Deadline is on September 29, 2020. The Financial Proposal Submission Deadline is on November 15, 2020.

Earlier this year, a request for qualifications process yielded two qualified development teams:

Triangle Collective comprised of Macquarie Financial Holdings (Infrastructure Equity Member), with Hensel Phelps Construction (Lead Contractor), OVG Facilities and Live Nation Worldwide (Lead Facilities Operators), Fentress Architects and Perkins+Will (Lead Architects), MIG (Lead Urban Designer and Lead Engineer, horizontal), Thornton Tomasetti (Lead Engineer, structural), Hoehn Architects (Historic Rehabilitation Consultant)

Triangle Partners comprised of Plenary Group USA Concessions and Saunders Concessions (Infrastructure Equity Members), with Saunders Construction and J.E. Dunn Construction Company (Lead Contractors), AEG Facilities (Lead Facilities Operator), Populous (Lead Architect), HKS (Lead Urban Designer), Martin/Martin (Lead Engineer), David Owen Tryba Architects (Historic Rehabilitation Consultant)