In Denver, city leaders also jumped at the demand for new homes. Taking what could have been a black eye — the seven square miles of land the old airport left behind — Denver created the Stapleton development, an entirely new town within the city.

"It provided a tremendous redevelopment possibility right in the heart of the city," Bender said.

Soon, people living in the new developments or those just traveling to the airport began to need an easier way to get around the northeastern metro area — in came E-470.

"It began to link the rest of the region together," said Jeff Romine, a research economist with the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Now, Romine said, the DIA region may be ready to take the next step. All the airport-dependent businesses, all the people moving to the area for airport-related jobs have created business parks, neighborhoods, retail centers and new wide-open highways that may be able to start functioning independently of the airport.

"We're just on the edge now of seeing firms not linked to the airport starting to locate out there because the infrastructure is developed," Romine said.

All that activity makes the view out Bender's conference-room window much more interesting. It won't be blank for long.

"Denver built a world-class airport," she said proudly. "And we want this region to be a world-class region.