The former Gates Rubber Company manufacturing facilities are situated on a 50-acre brownfields redevelopment site located at the convergence of two light rail lines, three miles south of downtown Denver. The Cherokee Gates property plus the adjacent 15 acre RTD light rail station are planned as a major transit oriented development project. The master developer, Cherokee Denver, LLC, engaged EPS to conduct market and financial feasibility studies for the project to determine the most marketable development program and to estimate potential levels of tax increment financing available to the project.
The key market issues were balancing the conflicting goals of higher density TOD with regional retail development to generate the sales tax revenues needed to support the TIF required to cover the costs of redevelopment and environmental cleanup. EPS conducted a detailed market study to identify the type of retail uses and specific anchor tenants that could be attracted to the site. EPS also identified the key development factors to "placemaking" at Cherokee to create the location and environment to support higher value residential uses, including a mixed-use village retail center. The recommended development program includes 2,500 housing units, 925,000 square feet of retail space, and 800,000 square feet of office space. A project financial model was developed to refine the overall development program, quantify financial returns and equity requirements, as well as to quantify the need for, and level of, the tax increment financing funding available to the project.