Denver International Airport served more than 80 million passengers in 2024, generates more than $47 billion for the region annually and owns more land than any other airport in the world except for one, Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd International Airport.

The DIA is the site of dozens of ongoing developments, including new hotels, a state-of-the-art flight training center and significant industrial growth.

Airport representatives and municipalities are working together to transform surrounding undeveloped areas into an “airport city,” positioning DIA as a key hub for commerce in the region.

“Anytime that our team looks at real estate development on our land, we do so with the lens of making sure that it’s good to the airport and the region as a whole,” said Ken Cope, senior vice president of real estate development at DIA’s real estate team.

DIA has about 53 square miles of land area annexed from Adams County, and still has more than 16,000 acres of non-aviation land available for compatible commercial development.

The airport’s strategic development plan has seven districts: 40th and Airport Commuter Rail Station, 61st and Peña Station, Second Creek Campus, 72nd and Himalaya, West Approach, East Approach and the Aeroindustrial District.

These districts will feature a variety of mixed-use developments and transit-oriented designs, accommodating businesses like retail, hospitality, restaurants, entertainment, professional services, technology, agribusiness, research and development, light industrial and advanced manufacturing.

Cope said the intergovernmental agreement with Adams County, which they entered in 1988, allows them to develop 1,500 acres for long-term ground lease and development.

If Denver plans to develop any more than 1,500 acres, it will need to amend the agreement with Adams County and with the consent of the Airport Coordinating Committee. No further voter approval will be needed, according to the agreement.

In terms of those first 1,500 acres, Cope said his team is focused on certain districts along the Pena Boulevard corridor, including the Second Creek Campus, where Utah-based manufacturer and distributor Swire Coca-Cola plans to build a more than 570,000-square-foot bottling plant at the northeast corner of Tower Road and Peña.

Construction at the Swire Coca-Cola facility is expected to begin in the third quarter of this year, with a planned grand opening in 2027, according to the project’s website.

The Denver City Council approved a $270.7 million, 75-year ground lease agreement with Swire.

PepsiCo is also developing a 1.2-million-square-foot Pepsi bottling plant south of the Coca-Cola plant, near the intersection of East 72nd Avenue and Argonne.

PepsiCo’s facility is expected to open this summer.

The West Approach district, where a cellphone lot and Phillips 66 gas station are located, will also begin to see more retail development, with plans for another large gas station, a restaurant, a coffee shop with a rooftop deck and additional cellphone lots and ride-share parking services.

“There aren’t a lot of places, candidly, that you can take a look at 16,000 acres and say, you know, how can we build an aerotropolis, or a city around an airport? It’s a phenomenal opportunity for our region to do in the right way,” Cope said.

“We want to make sure that what happens on our land is compatible and also a benefit to the region. You know, we are a public agency, and we have a duty to make sure that we are providing a public benefit, and so we don’t take that lightly.”

The need of an ‘airport city’

Before Denver was home to one of the busiest airports in the U.S., it had Stapleton International Airport, a 4,700-acre site bordered by Quebec Street, Montview Boulevard, Peoria Street and 56th Avenue.

Originally starting as a small airfield, it became the city’s main airport in 1929. However, by the late 1980s, the airport had become too small and outdated to meet Denver’s expanding aviation needs, according to Bill Aiken, deputy director of the Community & Economic Development Department at Adams County.

“If you look at where the Denver airport was, and before it moved to its current location, it was completely boxed in. It was surrounded,” he said.

“There was no opportunity for expansion.”

Besides the inability to expand, Stapleton faced problems like delays, traffic jams, inadequate runways and concerns about aircraft noise from residents in nearby neighborhoods.

DIA opened in February 1995, driven by the efforts of former Denver Mayors Federico Peña and Wellington Webb.

Stapleton airport was decommissioned that same year. Today, the area is still being redeveloped into a residential development with retail, office, industrial and warehouse distribution space.

With the concept of a “Colorado Aerotropolis” officially announced last year, plans are moving along. DIA is at the center of the Colorado Aerotropolis, but the area of impact extends well beyond the airport and its borders. The aerotropolis project website states the future city is an ideal location for organizations that need immediate access to global transport networks and supply chains, including proximity to the airport.

Aiken shared that his team is currently working through a process to help with a groundbreaking in unincorporated Adams County for a large Fortune 500 company. Because of confidentiality, he was unable to share information about the specific location or the user at this time.

Another key focus in development in the area is finding opportunities in existing infrastructure, such as roads, site access and the availability of power, water and sewer connections, Aiken said.

“One of the big initiatives that we’ve been working on internally with staff is a strategy to start to do our land use coordination in the same room together in this area,” he said.

“So, that we’re not planning sewer lines that maybe someone else is unaware of or maybe planning on a duplicative type of sewer line or other utility or infrastructure.”

However, areas where there is no existing infrastructure and no access are decades away from seeing any development, Aiken said.