Former Wheat Ridge Hospital Site Bought for $60 Million

The redevelopment of a former hospital site in Wheat Ridge is closer to becoming a reality after selling for $60 million.

Centennial-based E5X Management bought the 92 acres of land that once housed the Intermountain Health Lutheran Hospital from Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth Health System for $60 million, the Denver Business Journal reported. The hospital’s former location at 8300 West 38th Avenue was abandoned last year after Lutheran Hospital opened its new location at 12911 West 40th Avenue to patients.

The closing of the deal ends a monthslong process that started in May when it was announced that E5X would acquire the property, though no price was disclosed at the time. E5X previously said it plans to develop around 1,200 to 1,500 residential units at the site. That development proposal also calls for green space with trails and vows to preserve two existing buildings on the property, known as the blue house and chapel, which could later open as restaurants, event spaces or other public spaces, such as a library.

In 2021, the city of Wheat Ridge adopted a community-created master plan to transform the Lutheran Hospital campus. In November 2024, about 67 percent of voters in the Denver suburb passed Measure 2C, which created lower building height limits for the project. Early this year, the Wheat Ridge City Council voted to approve new mixed-use zoning rules for the development, dubbed the Lutheran Legacy Campus, that created “a balanced mix of land uses” including residential, institutional, civic, office and neighborhood-serving commercial functions, the Business Journal reported. The council later voted to rezone the property into a new zone district tailored to the development.

Wheat Ridge stands to gain more housing units in addition to the more than 1,000 planned for the former Lutheran Hospital site. In February, developer Thompson Thrift spent $8.5 million on more than 7 acres of land at Kipling Street and 44th Avenue with plans to build a 255-unit apartment complex.

— Chris Malone Méndez