This commentary is by Terri Brncic, an Open Boulder board member, co-organizer of the Boulder County commissioner expansion initiative and former Boulder City Council candidate.
Over the past two years, I have watched with increasing frustration as the Taj Mahal of office buildings has been painstakingly constructed at the old hospital site on North Broadway, commonly referred to as Alpine-Balsam. Before we get started, a quick recap for those who don’t make a habit of perusing Boulder City Council records with their morning coffee.
In 2015, the City of Boulder purchased the 8.8-acre Alpine-Balsam site for $40 million, which included the shuttered hospital building, the Pavilion and Brenton medical office buildings and a parking structure. The value proposition sold to the city council at the time rested on three promises: the site would provide land for critical flood mitigation work; the Pavilion Building would be renovated to consolidate city staff currently scattered in leased space across the city, saving on leasing and deferred-maintenance costs; and the remaining land would be used for housing, with proceeds from market-rate parcels helping offset affordable housing elsewhere on the site.
Eleven years later, the numbers tell a very different story from the one the community was sold.
The Pavilion: A case study in cost escalation
In February 2019, the city estimated the Pavilion Building renovation alone would cost $48 million to $58 million. Two months later, that estimate had grown to $90 million to $120 million, prompting several councilmembers to publicly question whether the project should continue at all.
By the December 2024 groundbreaking for the renovation, officials cited $140 million in capital investment and debt issuance for the entire “Western City Campus,” including the Pavilion, the Brenton Building and the parking structure, plus site infrastructure and flood mitigation work.
The city has not, to date, published a breakdown showing what portion of that $140 million is attributable specifically to the Pavilion. But we do know that, in addition to the $140 million, the city spent $16 million to demolish the adjacent hospital buildings and is expected to pay another $108 million in interest on money borrowed to purchase and redevelop the site.
So, based on my calculation using the information that is publicly available, drumroll please, we are talking about a minimum of $304 million for the Alpine-Balsam project ($40 million for the land + $16 million for the hospital demolition + $140 million for the Western City Campus + $108 million in interest on the debt). And this is before the city spends $1 on the Phase II affordable housing component that was promised for the land.
Turns out, the city can’t readily provide any answers
Wouldn’t it be nice if there were a public report showing budgeted versus actual spending on Alpine-Balsam, all in one place? How about a breakdown of where the city is getting the money to pay for it? How about just confirmation that $300 million is, in fact, the real total?
Since June, I have been asking these exact questions of the City Manager’s Office and the city council. I have been repeatedly rebuffed. After months of getting nowhere, I filed a formal request under the Colorado Open Records Act, or CORA, seeking records that would answer two simple questions: How much are we going to spend on Alpine-Balsam? And where is the money coming from?
The city missed CORA’s three-working-day deadline to respond. When I followed up, a representative from the City Manager’s Office told me that “since the Alpine Balsam project has been ongoing for 12 years now, there is not a compiled simple table” showing this information and asked for a seven-day extension to produce one.
Sit with that for a minute. This is one of the largest capital projects in Boulder city history, and the city could not produce, on demand, a basic accounting of what it has spent or how it is being financed. City staff have cited their focus on the 2027 budget as a reason for the delay. But how can anyone build a credible budget without first understanding the cash flow obligations of the city’s largest capital commitment?
This isn’t happening in a vacuum
If Alpine-Balsam were an isolated case, you might chalk it up to a costly, one-time mistake or a bad process, but not necessarily bad faith. But it isn’t isolated. At the very moment the city appears to be spending, at minimum, $300 million on Alpine-Balsam, money it apparently cannot fully account for, the city council has referred a $400 million bond measure to the November ballot, which the city’s own memos estimate will cost taxpayers roughly $650 million once interest is included. That will be paid for by you and me through a 20-year property tax increase.
Here’s the problem: If the city genuinely does not have Alpine-Balsam’s cash flow picture in hand, how can voters be confident that it fully considered the city’s existing financial commitments before recommending another $400 million in borrowing? And the city council, which, based on the response I received, doesn’t appear to have this information in hand either, voted to send that measure to voters anyway.
Where is the oversight? Where is the transparency? Where is the leadership willing to ask hard questions and hold people accountable, instead of leaving it to individual residents to file records requests to bring basic financial facts to light?
Boulder voters are being asked to approve $400 million more in borrowing from a city that cannot yet produce a simple accounting of the more than $300 million it’s already spending on the costliest capital project in city history. These aren’t two separate asks. They draw on the same city budget, the same debt capacity and the same taxpayers. A council that can’t tell you what its current largest capital project costs has not demonstrated that it can responsibly scope the next one. That’s not a technicality. That’s the whole question on this November’s ballot. I know how I’ll be voting.
it’s pretty clear at this point that Boulder’s City Manager doesn’t understand the economic fundamentals necessary to effectively run things, and this massive project without any grounded accounting is the receipt to prove it.
Sometimes the simplest questions are the hardest ones to answer. I appreciate your work to piece together what’s left of institutional memory and ask for a cumulative narrative for the public who will shoulder this burden. Let’s hear from you City Manager.
This is an eye-opening report about the lack of information regarding this project! Thank you Terri.
Thanks for your work on this. Please keep raising this issue. That’s a lot of money that will have a meaningful impact on each and every taxpayer.
I have rallied against this project from the start. There are plenty of more accessible empty office building in east Boulder with easy parking. Why did the overlords of the city need the best , most expensive real estate in town for their ‘Taj Mahal”. They should have moved east and sold off the property to the highest bidder and used the money to balance their (our) coffers.
It was during the public input process for Alpine-Balsam that I realized our city governance might be on the wrong track. Despite an elaborate series of events to seek community opinion on Alpine-Balsam, decisions had already been made. If the city wanted to consolidate its offices, why not do so downtown where so many offices are already located? The reason I heard was that the area around the existing municipal building was in the floodplain–but Alpine-Balsam development has required massive flood mitigation work! And, wouldn’t a true city center have helped to revitalize downtown? Instead, the traffic–from both city workers and citizens needing services–around the largely residential and small commercial Alpine-Balsam neighborhood will be significantly increased and downtown businesses will not benefit. And, all for new offices with a view that will be occupied ~9 hours/day. This could have been a moderate income community, including for seniors, which is sorely needed, and which would have minimally impacted traffic in the area.
Thanks, Terri for pointing out the over-the-top specifics of the upcoming ballot bailout proposal for our city manager to attempt to dig her way out of debt. The spending is out of control. It would be different if she were acting responsibly, but in this and other instances, there is no logic or justification for the exorbitant amounts demanded of taxpayers. Costs for the SoBo flood mitigation disaster have gone up 450% in the decade they’ve been trying to get that bad plan approved, for another example. I know how I’ll be voting too!
It appears that the citizens of Boulder didn’t vote on the Alpine-Balsam project. True or false?
And I agree, the city should not be asking us to vote on a $400 million bond before they can account for how they are spending our money on Alpine-Balsam. And where did the approximately $12 million a year go that the city used to fund the library with before it became its own taxing district?
These are all good points (including the disappeared funds from the library handoff). Even if I were inclined to vote “yes”, trusting that it would keep Boulder facilities from deteriorating, I have a gnawing concern that Alpine/Balsam would, directly or indirectly, siphon away large portions of the bond issue or other reserves, leaving us with unmet infrastructure needs and more asks.
Another fine example of a council and a pretty inept city manager, who seem to be OK with spending money they don’t have for their own needs, while not building the affordable housing their constituents need and that were promised. How can anyone, let alone council, not be able to account for costs that have already incurred? What the What? I know how I’m voting as well.
Terri Brncic – As a former practicing CPA, I appreciate your analysis and thoughtful comments and questions. It appears that the City of Boulder has abandoned all financial constraints.
Question: How can your message be widely presented to Boulder citizens who pay taxes and vote?
Do not approve the bond issue. The city is totally out of bounds on this and so many other fiscal matters, while falling far short of high priority matters like public safety and roads and streets. Another Real Estate tax increase is not the answer. Sell the property to a private co. or consortium and wash their hands of it. They clearly should not be in the real estate development business.