Broncos reveal parking and tailgating plan for Burnham Yard

While Denver’s urbanists cheered the renderings released last week of the new stadium at Burnham Yard, much of Broncos Country had a simpler question: Where do I park? The street-level imagery showed tree-lined trails, a main street and giant parks — but no parking lots. Social media lit up. Fans wanted to know where the cars go. And whether tailgating was about to die.

On Wednesday night, team president Damani Leech answered.

At the city’s Burnham Yard Small Area Plan community meeting, Leech laid out a phased parking and tailgating plan designed to quiet the loudest criticism — and dropped new renderings to back it up.

The first phase of the development will include approximately the same number of parking spaces as Empower Field at Mile High, which currently has roughly 10,000 spots across its lots. The early setup will lean on surface parking, similar to what fans know now.

“Then we’ll get later into Phases 2 and 3, many years later,” Leech said. “You’ll start to see more buildout. Some of that surface parking gets built on top of. It becomes structured parking. And then you get to full buildout, and that’s the image you all saw publicly.”

The key number: even after every phase is complete, more than 1,000 surface parking spaces north and south of the stadium will remain — designed specifically for tailgating.

Curious about parking at the next Broncos stadium?

There will be “approximately the same number of spaces as are at the current stadium” in Phase 1 of the development.

Renderings from a community meeting tonight: pic.twitter.com/TY6bGdbdlx

— Kyle Fredrickson (@kylefredrickson) August 13, 2026

So tailgating lives on.

The centerpiece of the tailgating plan is Burnham Yard Parkway, a new north-south street that doesn’t exist yet, running just outside the stadium. On game days, the parkway converts into a designated tailgate zone.

“You think about Denver as a city of parkways and green spaces,” Leech said. “On game day, it’s a place people can pull up cars, park, tailgate, have a really good time, enjoy themselves. And then when you have a non-major event day or a non-game day, it’s just a small park where people can go and spend some time, have some great tree canopy, get cool and have a really good time.”

It’s a different model than the seas of asphalt at Empower Field. The Broncos are hoping fans will trade sprawling lots for a purpose-built street that flips from everyday parkway to pregame party and back again.

A 👀 at a few of the additional renderings shared at Wednesday's Burnham Yard Small Area Plan meeting, featuring an elevated tailgating experience on gameday: pic.twitter.com/FVK14MflDB

— Denver Broncos (@Broncos) August 13, 2026

Wednesday’s meeting also addressed a key piece of infrastructure that matters to the neighborhood year-round. Leech said the plan calls for fewer heavy-rail crossings in the area while adding more light-rail crossing locations.

“Our expectation: continue to work with the city, the state and RTD to really slow down the trains, bring the noise down,” Leech said, noting that RTD trains already run at 15 mph through downtown Denver. The hope is to extend that standard to the Burnham Yard neighborhood.

The plan also includes a grade-separated crossing at 13th Avenue, with the tracks going over the street on a bridge — eliminating a current conflict point between trains, cars, bikes and pedestrians.

The parking reveal comes during a week when the Burnham Yard project has been moving on multiple fronts. Owner and CEO Greg Penner reiterated this week that the 2031 target “is not going to be easy,” while the club closed its $55 million purchase of nearly 10 acres from SRM Concrete — a deal that cost more than the $45.8 million price tag on the 58.5 acres at Burnham Yard itself.

Leech framed the project in its broadest terms yet Wednesday, connecting the Burnham Yard site — more than 130 acres — with the eventual redevelopment of the Empower Field site for a combined 200-plus acres of new development in Denver.

It’s the first time the team has publicly combined those numbers into a single pitch. When the Broncos leave Empower Field, roughly 80 acres revert to the city. Mayor Mike Johnston has said that land would be used for housing, parks and riverfront. If Burnham Yard works as planned, Denver doesn’t just get a new stadium — it gets, basically, two new neighborhoods.

“We still believe Burnham Yard has the possibility to be a vibrant addition to this existing neighborhood,” Leech said. “A place where neighbors feel comfortable, where our fans feel comfortable, where guests to this place that we’re going to build all feel comfortable.”

He closed with the line the Broncos keep coming back to: “We can’t do it alone.”

Broncos Country asked where they’d park — now they know.

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