The arena in San Diego's Midway District, seen when it was still the San Diego Sports Arena. Photo: Nehrams2020, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
The San Diego City Council voted unanimously Monday night to move Midway Rising forward, approving the land use, zoning and real estate agreements that would replace Pechanga Arena with a new arena, about 4,250 homes and a neighborhood of parks and shops on city-owned land in the Midway District.
The vote came at the end of a meeting that ran about seven hours, roughly four of them public comment, NBC 7 reported. It is not the last step. The project’s public infrastructure depends on an enhanced infrastructure financing district, and that district needs a vote from the County Board of Supervisors as well, because the city and county would both give up a share of future property tax growth to pay for roads, parks and utilities, KPBS reported from the chamber.
What the council signed off on
According to the city’s announcement, the 48.5-acre site would hold:
- 2,000 affordable homes, with average rents set for households at or below 60% of area median income, including at least 200 units of permanent supportive housing
- about 2,250 market-rate apartments
- a 16,000-seat entertainment center in place of the current arena, which seats about 12,000
- 14.5 acres of parks and public space and 130,000 square feet of shops and restaurants
- about $460 million in streets, utilities and stormwater work, which the city says comes at no upfront cost to the city
The city puts the total construction investment at more than $4.2 billion and calls it the largest affordable housing development in California history. The deal is structured as a 105-year ground lease. The development team is Chelsea Investment Corp. on the affordable housing, Legends on the arena, Zephyr on the market-rate homes and The Kroenke Group as equity investor. The city picked the group in 2022 out of five proposals.
Build-out will be slow. KPBS reported the full project could take up to 18 years, and the city says the old arena will not come down until the new one is ready to open, so there should be no gap in scheduled events at the site.
How it got here
The redevelopment has been in the works for about five years, 10News noted, and a good part of that time was spent in court. In January, the California Supreme Court declined to hear the city’s appeal of a lower-court ruling that blocked the project’s exemption from the height limit, NBC 7 reported. In September, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed two Senate bills aimed at clearing that path while keeping the project under state environmental review, according to the city.
Councilmember Jennifer Campbell, who represents the district, called the vote a step toward “a long-overdue transformation of the Midway District.” Mayor Todd Gloria said in a statement that the city had “talked about transforming the Midway District for the last decade” and had now moved “from talking about it to making it real.”
Support from the dais was unanimous, but not uncritical. Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera said that homes “that exist on paper” don’t do the good the project is supposed to deliver, according to NBC 7. Speakers who opposed the project raised traffic, noise and pollution, and some questioned whether the city is getting a fair return on public land, 10News reported.
What has to happen next
The city and the developers will now work with the county on forming the financing district, which the city expects to take about a year. Before any construction, the team has to meet the milestones in its disposition and development agreement, including getting permits, and then sign the long-term lease. Documents for the deal are posted on the city’s Economic Development Department site.
