A gritty block in Denver’s Arapahoe Square neighborhood soon could be home to “Masterpiece,” Big Bird and Viewers Like You.

On Thursday, as Rocky Mountain PBS marks its 60th anniversary at a Denver Central Library exhibit recounting the broadcaster’s past, CEO Doug Price is expected to announce an ambitious plan for the future: a $30 million capital campaign to fund new headquarters at 21st and Arapahoe streets.

The mixed-used project, with Rocky Mountain PBS as its anchor, is expected to spark activity in a neighborhood the Downtown Denver Partnership has identified as its next target for urban revival.

Price said the project is in “the aspirational phase,” but the plan is to swap the current RMPBS space on Bannock Street, near West 11th Avenue, for $1.5 million and a state-owned block bounded by Lawrence, Arapahoe, 21st and 22nd streets.

RMPBS would lease back the Bannock Street building until its new home is ready, in two or three years.

State Land Board real estate manager Christopher Smith confirmed the trade. Price said the transaction is expected to close in June.

It does not include the historic Lobby building, Phoenix House or the Stage Stop row homes at 21st and Lawrence.

Downtown Denver Partnership president and CEO Tami Door called the RMPBS plan “a significant pillar project” for Arapahoe Square, a jumble of mostly historic buildings and surface parking lots bounded by Park Avenue and Lawrence, Tremont and 20th streets.

“We’re excited about the neighborhood’s future. We know what its potential is in that area, to further catalyze the neighborhood,” she said. “This is a strong group of leaders with a strong vision. They have been working on this concept for a while and are very strategic about it.”

Like the addition of the Mile High United Way headquarters to Curtis Park, the neighborhood next door, the RMPBS project “sends a strong message,” Door said.

“Every time you add another significant development, it is not only adding value but sending a message about investing in the neighborhood,” she said. “It starts to really jell.”

The city has been working on new zoning and design guidelines for Arapahoe Square and expects to have draft rules ready for City Council review in June.

RMPBS’s plan still requires city approval.

“It’s really, really early,” Denver planning department spokeswoman Andrea Burns said.

If the public broadcaster meets its funding goal, plans call for a major new complex containing offices, studios, a theater possibly to be run by the Denver Center for Performing Arts, a “Discovery and Exploration Center” or digital learning lab for inner-city kids and an educational campus that could be used by the University of Colorado media department.

A residential component is possible.

Grants from the city and foundations are being secured. Price said fundraising is ”

27 percent there.”

“We expect to have, by the first or second quarter of 2017, enough to break ground and hope to have enough fundraising done by 2018 to allow some occupancy,” he said.

Joanne Ostrow: 303-954-1830, jostrow@denverpost.com or @ostrowdp