The more than 50-year-old Intermountain Lutheran Hospital property will soon be the home of a new Wheat Ridge neighborhood.

Chris Elliott, principal of Centennial-based development firm E5x Management, sat down with the City Council on Monday evening to outline the current concept for the 100-acre site on which the bhospital sat since 1961.

Intermountain Health selected E5x Management as the buyer for the parcel in May after moving the hospital to a 26-acre site 3 miles west at Interstate 70 and 40th Avenue in 2024.  

“We are just getting into the process of the design,” Elliott said Tuesday. “It’s by no means a simple process for us. There are a lot of conditions that are embedded in that zoning code that are obviously a result of the work you all did with the community.”

The city created the Lutheran Legacy Campus Master Plan in 2021 after surveying more than 1,200 residents and holding public meetings and workshops, according to the city.

In 2024, Wheat Ridge voters reaffirmed this vision by passing a ballot measure — approved by 67% of voters — that limited building heights in the center of the campus to five stories and lowers height allowances on the perimeter of the site to 30 feet.

“It’s very impressive,” Elliott said of the voting. “It says that (the city) is in tune with what the community wanted to see.” 

The zoning will also require 20% of dedicated property to be public open space — double the typical city requirement for mixed-use projects following the City Council’s April 28 custom rezoning of the property.

That open space would be toward the east side of the neighborhood and stretch through the center with trails. That plan would require going over the existing Rocky Mountain Ditch — run by Rocky Mountain Water Company — but the developer has already discussed piping it and building over it.

Five-story apartment buildings would be situated in the middle of the area, with townhomes surrounding it. Single-family homes would make up the border, with small parks distributed throughout.

A tree line would act as a buffer to the west side, but E5x wants the neighborhood to blend into the area and not appear as a segregated area.

The plan also calls for the protection of the chapel and the Blue House that was built in 1902. 

So far, the developers have been looking into tree preservation and ways to create a natural feel for the neighborhood within the city that maintains the history of the area, according to Elliott. 

For example, E5x plans on using towers from the hospital.

“That building started out as a really special architectural structure,” Elliott said, showing a rendering of an entryway into the neighborhood with the towers built in. The sign read “Legacy.”

“Legacy means something. The notion of incorporating the legacy name into the ultimate name of the community is something we think is really important,” he added.

“Their collaborative approach, in concert with the master plan adopted by the Wheat Ridge City Council in 2021, ensures that our mutual goal of fostering community health and prosperity will be realized,” Chad Moynahan, Intermountain Health region director of real estate, said in a news release in May.

But the neighborhood is a long way out, with the planning process still ongoing. 

E5x is still in negotiations with demolitions companies and the first step is to upgrade bikeways in the area. Then, the developer will start at the southern end with home construction. 

“This is initial efforts to do this. We want to continue to get feedback from you and from the community as to exactly what we want to try to present,” Elliott said.