Midway Rising is approved, unanimously, and the Sports Arena site has its future
The City Council unanimously approved the Midway Rising redevelopment on Monday, the city announced that evening, closing the special meeting devoted to the project. The approval advances a plan for up to 4,254 homes, at least 2,000 of them affordable, a new entertainment center of about 16,000 seats, retail, parks and public space on the city owned Sports Arena site.
CITY HALL: The decision is made. The City Council unanimously approved the Midway Rising redevelopment project on Monday, the city announced on Monday evening, November 9, closing a special meeting that the council had given over entirely to the future of the Sports Arena site in the Midway district. The city describes the vote as a major milestone in the transformation of the site, and calls it what is expected to be California's largest affordable housing development ever.
Monday's meeting opened with a closed session at 10 a.m., and the session that began at 1 p.m. carried three items, every one of them about Midway Rising: a statement of intent to form an Enhanced Infrastructure Financing District for the site, the project and its land use package, filed as PRJ-1106734, and the disposition and development agreement between the city and Midway Rising LLC for the long term lease and development of the property. The site is city owned land at 3220, 3240, 3250, 3350 and 3500 Sports Arena Boulevard, approximately 49 acres south of Interstate 8 and the San Diego River in the Midway-Pacific Highway Community Plan area.
What the approval sets in motion
As approved, the project allows up to 4,254 homes on the site. At least 2,000 of them are affordable homes, including at least 200 permanent supportive housing units, and the city's project table counts 2,254 market rate homes alongside them. The package also carries an entertainment center of approximately 16,000 seats, approximately 130,000 square feet of retail and commercial space, 8.2 acres of parks and 6.42 acres of public space, with transportation and infrastructure improvements on and off the site. The city's October account of the committee stage put the estimated construction cost at more than $4.2 billion, to be built with private capital in multiple phases over many years.
One continuity is built into the plan the city described in October: the current Pechanga Arena stays standing, and is not demolished, until its replacement entertainment center has been fully built and is ready to open, so scheduled events at the arena face no gap while the new venue is under construction.
The next step belongs to two governments
The city's announcement names the work that follows the vote. The city and the County of San Diego will now work together on establishing the Enhanced Infrastructure Financing District, the financing mechanism intended to help fund the public infrastructure the project and the surrounding community need. The financing district was the first of the three items before the council on Monday, taken up ahead of the project approvals themselves.
Monday's vote ends a selection process that began more than four years ago. The council chose the Midway Rising team for the site on September 13, 2022, as the successful respondent to the city's notice of availability, and authorized staff to negotiate an exclusive negotiating agreement. The agreement and the related real estate documents then passed the council's Land Use and Housing Committee unanimously, at a special meeting on Friday, October 16, 2026, before reaching the full council on Monday. The record the council acted on, the agenda, the specific plan, the environmental record and the agreement itself, remains posted in full on the city's Midway Rising page.
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