United Airlines is clearing the runway for its ongoing Colorado expansion, acquiring more than 100 acres of undeveloped land near Denver International Airport.
The Chicago-based global airline confirmed its $33 million purchase of a 113-acre swath where it plans to develop a satellite to the company's only pilot training facility.
The deal comes as carriers across the country scramble to keep up with an unprecedented tourism boom triggered by the end of pandemic-related lockdowns and pent-up travel plans.
For United, the land near the Denver airport — the airline's second-busiest hub behind Chicago's O'Hare International Airport — is expected to leave plenty of room for future growth in the area since the training facility will only occupy a small portion of the site at 17671 E. 64th Ave.
“This property gives us a lot of options,” United spokesperson Russell Carlton said in a statement to CoStar News. “We’ve already begun work on plans to use part of this land as the site for the expansion of our world-class Denver pilot training facility and we’ll evaluate additional opportunities in the future as [our plan] unfolds.”
Spread across more than 33,500 acres, Denver International is the world's second-largest airport by land area and third busiest based on air traffic.
The new training center, which is estimated to complete construction in 2028, will serve as a satellite campus to a $100 million, four-story project United broke ground on last year in Denver's Central Park neighborhood.
Asked if the airline could use the land to relocate its corporate headquarters from the 110-story Willis Tower in Chicago to the Denver area, the company neither confirmed nor denied the possibility.
"The land in Denver gives us options for the future as we implement our big plans to grow," Carlton said, adding that while the company has no immediate plans to develop the newly acquired acreage surrounding the training facility, the "property gives us a lot of options. We don't necessarily know what we’re doing with the rest of the land yet, but it's a good opportunity for our company to have it in a place that we're growing.”
The Denver land deal extends a string of real estate moves the carrier has made over the past several years, many of which have shifted its presence in and around its Chicago headquarters. While United remains the largest tenant in the Willis Tower — it leases more than 800,000 square feet in the city's tallest building — it shed about 20% of its original footprint in the skyscraper in the early days of the pandemic and has since relocated hundreds of employees from downtown Chicago to a separate operations center in the suburbs.
Fueled for Growth
United Airlines' swelling investment to expand its Denver-area presence has made it one of the city's largest private employers and a significant source of economic development for the region. The carrier employs roughly 10,100 workers in the area with plans to add more than 1,800 positions before the end of this year.
Along with its burgeoning workforce — Denver is now the company's fourth-largest employment hub in the country — United officials said it would invest nearly $825 million in expanding its operations in the city as it adds more flights, gates, routes, lounges and of course, real estate.
Air travel demand this summer is expected to be the strongest since before the pandemic — and potentially the strongest ever, according to analysis from the United States Travel Association. More than 25% of Americans plan to increase the amount they are spending on leisure travel through August, up from 19% in the first quarter of the year.
Southwest earlier this summer unveiled plans to invest nearly $120 million to build new industrial and operational facilities around the Denver airport. The Dallas-based company is expecting to spend upward of $220 million to develop facilities that will be used for everything from stocking snacks and beverages to space for its ground-service equipment.
The company is Denver International's second-largest carrier behind United.
Space in and around the nation's largest airports has always been in high demand, but limited land availability has created steep barriers for development. That hasn't been as much of an issue for the industrial market surrounding the Denver hub, however, and more than 6 million square feet of warehouse and logistics space has been built in the region over the past five years, according to CoStar data.
Another nearly 2 million square feet is moving through the pipeline.
CoStar News reporter Ryan Ori contributed.