{"id":2079,"date":"2026-06-27T18:35:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T18:35:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/coloradospringsmoverss.com\/?p=2079"},"modified":"2026-06-27T18:35:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T18:35:14","slug":"a-chunk-of-centennial-could-fall-into-auroras-hands-as-regis-jesuit-high-school-tries-to-simplify-campus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coloradospringsmoverss.com\/?p=2079","title":{"rendered":"A chunk of Centennial could fall into Aurora\u2019s hands as Regis Jesuit High School tries to simplify campus"},"content":{"rendered":"
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There will soon be a little less of Centennial to love \u2014 18.03 acres less, to be exact.<\/p>\n

Read more In Broomfield, man dead after a shooting at police scene, department says<\/a><\/p>\n

Next month, the city will bid goodbye to a parcel at the northwest corner of East Arapahoe Road and South Olathe Street that\u2019s owned by Regis Jesuit High School. It will revert to Arapahoe County\u2019s oversight in a rarely used legal process in Colorado known as municipal disconnection.<\/p>\n

Before year\u2019s end, the largely vacant property is expected to be absorbed into Aurora through an annexation request from the high school, boosting the size of Colorado\u2019s third-largest city by the same 18 acres and change.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unusual for a city in Denver\u2019s expanding suburbs to willingly give up territory, and the proposal initially landed with a thud for a Centennial city councilman who\u2019d lose part of his district.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never expected to shrink my city,\u201d Councilman Don Sheehan said. \u201cMy first reaction to the proposal included words not suitable for print.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an understandable reaction from an elected leader in one of Colorado\u2019s newer municipalities. Centennial became a city on Feb. 7, 2001, and has been on a steady growth trajectory over the last quarter-century. The city, with a population of nearly 110,000, covers just over 30 square miles south of Aurora and east of Littleton.<\/p>\n

When the details of the jurisdictional shift were sorted out, however, Sheehan\u2019s concerns about becoming a diminished city were allayed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the end, the positives outweigh the negatives for all concerned,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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The Centennial City Council approved the disconnection on June 16. It goes into effect in mid-July.<\/p>\n

For Regis Jesuit High School, which initiated the disconnection process two years ago, it came down to a desire to consolidate its campus on South Lewiston Way fully into Aurora, where it opened 36 years ago.<\/p>\n

But the school\u2019s history goes back much further. Founded by Italian Jesuits in 1877 in Las Vegas, New Mexico, the school soon made its way to northwest Denver, where it was located on the campus of Regis University. Both entities formally separated in 1979, and a decade later, the high school moved south to Aurora.<\/p>\n

Regis Jesuit, which enrolls around 1,600 students, bought the 18-acre parcel in 2017 with plans for it to host multipurpose artificial turf fields, a fieldhouse, a retreat center and a 175-space parking lot. Regis Jesuit built seven tennis courts on the land three years ago.<\/p>\n

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Diana Rael, the vice chair of the private Catholic school\u2019s board of trustees, said having the southern portion of the campus in a different city from the front office just a few hundred feet away is a recipe for confusion and aggravation.<\/p>\n

From who provides water (Aurora Water charges a premium to provide water outside its service area) to which city\u2019s land-use codes apply to who responds to 911 calls at the school, it all adds up to a bifurcated mess, Rael said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing in two different cities for emergency services is very confusing,\u201d she said. \u201cEssentially, all of our utilities go through Aurora. It\u2019s a melting pot of codes out there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Municipal disconnection is \u201cextraordinarily rare\u201d in Colorado, said Andy Peters, a land use attorney with Otten Johnson Robinson Neff and Ragonetti.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe possibility of disconnection is typically used as leverage in a conversation about what a landowner could get from a city,\u201d he said. \u201cPeople rarely go through with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rare doesn\u2019t mean never. Centennial itself has approved disconnections twice since the city\u2019s inception \u2014 once in 2007 and once in 2013.<\/p>\n

And two years ago, Greenwood Village disconnected a 5.78-acre parcel stranded from the rest of the city by Interstate 225, according to a story in BusinessDen. The land was transferred to the jurisdiction of Arapahoe County. At the heart of that move was the city\u2019s stated inability to meet adequate emergency response times to the property, where a developer planned to build homes.<\/p>\n

Read more Today in History: June 26, first Harry Potter novel published<\/a><\/p>\n

Neil Marciniak, the economic development director for Centennial, said the city made sure to come away with an agreement with Regis Jesuit that looked out for its interests, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe understand Regis\u2019 desire to consolidate their campus in one jurisdiction,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd we fully expect Regis Jesuit to continue being a good neighbor to residents of our city.\u201d<\/p>\n

The disconnection agreement comes with a list of conditions designed to ensure that the property\u2019s future absorption into Aurora doesn\u2019t turn into a nightmare for residents of Centennial\u2019s Cherry Creek East and Lazy Hills Ranchettes neighborhoods to the east.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted to make a crystal clear agreement about what land uses are allowed and what land uses are prohibited,\u201d Marciniak said.<\/p>\n

Regis Jesuit can\u2019t build a stadium, a mortuary, a group homes or after-hours clubs on the 18 acres. It is also barred from placing a marijuana dispensary or a sexually oriented business on the property, the agreement states.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s probably not something a private Catholic high school would be looking to do,\u201d Rael said wryly.<\/p>\n

There are more practical land use limits in the agreement. The height limit of any building would be 38 feet along the eastern edge of the parcel, with an exception for a 60-foot-tall fieldhouse on the west side.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there are buildings, they need to push them as far to the west of the property as possible,\u201d Marciniak said.<\/p>\n

Regis Jesuit\u2019s facilities must screen its athletic operations from the nearby neighborhood with trees and landscaping. Access to the parcel will be restricted from Arapahoe and Olathe, forcing traffic to enter the school\u2019s property from Lewiston Way in Aurora.<\/p>\n

Those concessions helped sell the disconnection to Sheehan, the Centennial councilman. Because the high school is a nonprofit entity and isn\u2019t taxed, it sends little revenue to the city. Yet Centennial has had to provide public safety services to the property, Sheehan said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom a fiscal standpoint, it\u2019s a net positive to the city to not be serving this property any longer,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

While losing 18 acres may look bad on paper for a city, Centennial has, on net, gained far more land than it has lost. In fact, the city was on a bit of an annexation tear a decade or so ago, inviting criticism from Arapahoe County residents that Centennial was engaged in a land grab.<\/p>\n

Similar protests a decade and a half earlier were what led to Centennial\u2019s incorporation in the first place. In the 1990s, residents in unincorporated Arapahoe County grew tired of Greenwood Village\u2019s attempts to annex adjoining land to bolster that city\u2019s tax base.<\/p>\n

After a legal challenge that went all the way to the Colorado Supreme Court, voters living inside the proposed boundaries of Centennial approved the city\u2019s formation in 2000.<\/p>\n

Once the new disconnection from Centennial is complete, there are just a few details to work out, as Regis Jesuit prepares to file a formal annexation application with Aurora. It can\u2019t come soon enough for the school.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re ready to submit tomorrow,\u201d Rael said.<\/p>\n

Get more Colorado news by signing up for our daily Your Morning Dozen email newsletter.<\/em><\/p>\n

Read more Today in History: June 27, first ATM unveiled near London<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Centennial will cede 18 acres of its own turf next month so that Regis Jesuit High School can consolidate its campus fully into Aurora under an incorporation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2078,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nA chunk of Centennial could fall into Aurora\u2019s hands as Regis Jesuit High School tries to simplify campus - Colorado Springs Moverss<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/coloradospringsmoverss.com\/?p=2079\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A chunk of Centennial could fall into Aurora\u2019s hands as Regis Jesuit High School tries to simplify campus - 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