Globeville and Elyria-Swansea

Pricing trends

Globeville and Elyria-Swansea price among the lowest in the city for detached homes, well below Five Points, Sunnyside and Cole, with renovated cottages near the river and the station at the top. Values have climbed with the public investment and remain volatile block to block. The Denver table below carries the citywide numbers.

Citywide figures for Denver. Source: Local Market Update, August 2026, REcolorado data compiled by the Colorado Association of REALTORS®. Neighborhood-level figures vary; ask me for comparables on any specific home. See all area tables.

About Globeville

Globeville, Elyria and Swansea are the historic working neighborhoods north of downtown along the South Platte, settled by smelter and packing-plant workers from the 1880s onward and cut apart by Interstate 70 in the 1960s. The rebuilt, lowered highway, the National Western Center campus and the Platte riverfront projects are changing them faster than any part of the city, and they still hold some of Denver's lowest home prices within two miles of Union Station.

Location

Globeville sits west of the river and north of the rail yards along Washington Street and 45th Avenue; Elyria and Swansea lie east of the river between the National Western Center and Colorado Boulevard, north and south of I-70. Sunnyside and the Highlands are west across the tracks, Five Points and RiNo are south, Cole is southeast, and Commerce City is north. The 48th and Brighton station on the N Line serves the area; downtown is a ten-minute ride.

History and background

Globeville takes its name from the Globe Smelting and Refining Company, which opened its smelter on the South Platte in 1889 and drew workers from Poland, Russia, Slovenia, Croatia and Germany. Their churches, including the Orthodox and Polish Catholic parishes that still stand, gave the neighborhood its character. Globeville was its own town until Denver annexed it in 1902.

Elyria and Swansea, east of the river, grew around the smelters, the railroads and the Denver Union Stock Yards, which opened in 1886 and made the area the livestock center of the Rocky Mountain West. The National Western Stock Show has been held there every January since 1906. Mexican and Mexican-American families became the majority in the mid-twentieth century.

The construction of Interstate 70 on a viaduct through the neighborhoods in the 1960s cut them apart, and the smelters left a legacy of contaminated soil that took decades of cleanup. Since 2015 the lowering of I-70, the redevelopment of the National Western Center as a year-round campus and new parks along the river have begun to reverse that history.

Housing and architecture

The streets hold 1880s to 1920s frame and brick cottages and small bungalows on narrow lots, many original, with some 1940s and 1950s homes and a scattering of new duplexes and townhomes near the river and the station. Industrial parcels sit beside housing on many blocks, and the National Western and I-70 projects acquired and cleared homes along their edges. Buyers find both deeply affordable original houses and a growing number of renovations.

Parks and recreation

The Platte River Trail runs through both neighborhoods toward Confluence Park, with Globeville Landing Park, Swansea Park with its recreation center, Argo Park and the new parks and river access around the National Western Center. The Rocky Mountain Arsenal refuge is a short drive northeast.

Dining, shopping and daily life

Washington Street, Brighton Boulevard and 46th Avenue carry the neighborhoods' markets, taquerias and bakeries, with RiNo's Larimer Street and the Denver Central Market a few blocks south. The National Western Center's stock show in January, its year-round events and the planned public market are the new anchors, and groceries are at the Safeway on 20th or the markets along Brighton Boulevard.