Lone Tree would willingly want more boxelder maples, quaking aspens and common chokeberries. Build it, Broncos, and they will plant.

DUMP DENVER!

The Broncos have played their entire 66-year AFL-NFL history in two stadiums situated on the former city dump.

The team must move out of the Dusty Old Cowtown to the Flashy New  Suburban Town.

Lone Tree was the backup choice for the future football stadium.

Burn Burnham Yards boondoggle.

Unlike the Chiefs who are abandoning Missouri for Kansas and the Bears leaving Chicago for Indiana, and the New York Jets and Giants located in another state, the Broncos should be playing just 20 miles down Interstate 25.

Instead of a 10-acre tract squeezed between railroad tracks and a concrete company and waterworks with paltry parking places, the stadium and the surrounding entertainment, busing and housing development would be spread out on wide-open plains with plenty of parking, easy ingress and egress from Denver and Douglas Counties on I-25, and C- and E-470 from the mountains, and on parkways and roads even from parts unknown. The light-rail system already has three stations close to the potential Lone Tree stadium, and the proposed Front Range rapid railroad (called CoCo – ugh) would be Broncos boon bonus for fans from Colorado Springs to Fort Collins. The ride from DIA would be a straight shot, and the Broncos’ new $175-million headquarters and practice fields and Centennial Airport are only 15 minutes away on back roads.

This is a no-brainer for principal owner-CEO Greg Penner, who has been frustrated by the anti-stadium issues caused by Denver Water, a Denver City Council member and homeowners in the neighborhoods near Burnham Yard.

Hey, Greg, let them eat Burnham Yard.

Penner is still somewhat fresh to Denver. For a half century I’ve lived in six different homes, apartments and condos in Denver proper, and outside the city from Parker to Greenwood Village, and I get it.

The metropolitan population of six counties approved taxes to fund a Major League Baseball park and a National Football League stadium. There were epic battles among elected, appointed and idiotic officials and among the citizenries. I listened daily to arguments from householders who resided adjacent to old Mile Hile Stadium, then much later the second (whatever it’s called now) football stadium. How about the dirty debates over Stapleton Airport neighborhood adults? And getting Coors Field financial authorizations was no bargain. I’ve written countless columns about the sports arenas and stadiums.

Penner is finding out. All he has agreed to do is pay billions for a domed stadium with a 2027 construction start and a 2031 opening. However, he may have to wait until 3000 at Burnham Yard.

Several days ago Broncos president Demani Leech told us media types during a tour of the Versailles-like Broncos’ headquarters his “concern” dealing with the snail’s pace of the project because of loud objections involving the Denver Water facilities being forced to relocate and complaints from community and political leaders about home displacements, tax increases and the presence of a stadium causing commotion.

This is Penner’s Waterloo.

Meanwhile, out in the weeds of Lone Tree, everyone has continued to plead for the Broncos stadium. Years ago the town mothers and fathers set aside 10 million square feet potentially for an epicenter Broncos stadium.

They’re there waiting for their Broncos. Denverites and Denver wrongs are trying to run off a dual indoor-outdoor stadium that would not cost taxpayers multiples of millions and could host a Super Bowl, an NFL draft, a NCAA Final Four and 200 other sports, entertainment and business events.

On a clear day from the proposed stadium site at Lone Tree City Center you can see downtown Denver, the Rocky Mountains and forever.

Nearby in 1874 three Austrian emigrant brothers – John, Jason and Jacob Schweiger, who had been Leadville miners – bought 38 acres and homesteaded, built a house, a barn, a stable and several other structures for the eventual large family.

They planted a tree.

Penner and the Walmart Waltons should study Schweiger history. The brothers sold cows, chickens and hogs, oats, wheat and corn to the other settlers. They were early-day Waltons and ended up with 4,000 acres.

The ranch (owned by a family trust) still is active for tourism, holiday festivals and cultural education.

Lone Tree, which incorporated as a town in 1995, respects Schweiger Ranch and would revere Mile High Stadium III.

The Broncos’ ownership should be game-changers and go to stadium Plan B.