Plans to replace the Denver Coliseum are back, and so is the debate
Nov 11, 2026, 11:16 AM
Be honest: when was the last time you went to the Denver Coliseum and thought, “Wow, this place is really holding up”?
The city is bringing back a plan to replace the Coliseum with a new 10,000-seat arena. The idea first came up more than a decade ago, and now it’s part of the final phase of the National Western Center redevelopment. The new arena wouldn’t stay where the Coliseum is now, just south of I-70. It would move north of the highway into “the Triangle,” a 92-acre stretch of land next to the National Western campus. City leaders say they want the arena close to the heart of the campus. They also want to rebuild bridges and connections so the campus is “no longer an island” cut off from the neighborhoods around it.
Not everyone is on board. Neighbors in Globeville and Elyria-Swansea are pushing back again. Many of their homes were removed when I-70 was rebuilt and widened in the 1990s, and they’ve long hoped the Triangle would become housing and community space instead. One longtime resident told CBS Colorado that her family’s home once stood on land that’s now part of the campus. Many of the opponents aren’t against a new arena. They want it to stay south of the highway, where the Coliseum is now, and they’ve put together their own plan. They also have history on their side: Denver voters rejected funding for a new arena back in 2021.
Where it goes is a real debate. Whether the old barn has earned its retirement is a little easier to answer. The Coliseum has hosted decades of Stock Show rodeos, concerts and cowboy hats, and it has the nostalgia to show for it. It also has the creaky seats, tight concourses and bathroom lines to match. Ask anybody who’s spent a January night in there watching bull riding and they’ll tell you it’s a classic, but it’s no spring chicken.
So whether the new arena ends up north or south of I-70, one thing seems clear: the Coliseum has given Denver a great ride, and it might finally be time to let it hang up its spurs.
