Midway Rising Arena Deal Heads to Full Council as Affordable-Housing Loophole Gets Closed
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After years of negotiation, the Midway Rising Sports Arena redevelopment agreement is expected to come before the full San Diego City Council at its November 9th and 10th meetings, where members are anticipated to vote on a proposed disposition and development agreement with Midway Rising LLC for city-owned properties at 3500, 3250, 3220, and 3240 Sports Arena Boulevard, as well as a proposal to form an Enhanced Infrastructure Financing District to fund the project. Staff leads Christina Bibler from Economic Development and Richard Eyre from Finance are named as presenters.
The full Midway Rising project, if it clears all phases, would include 4,254 total homes, a 16,000-seat arena, 130,000 square feet of commercial space, and a 105-year lease with the city. A revision to the affordable-housing provisions — a new Section 15.4 provision — was adopted earlier this week to prevent the automatic transfer of other developers' affordable units into Midway Rising's 2,000-unit commitment. The city's Independent Budget Analyst had flagged that without the fix, somewhere between 200 and 800 units could have been counted from other projects rather than actually built on-site.
Also anticipated on the November council agenda: proposed responses to two grand jury reports, one concerning the Commission on Police Practices and one concerning low fire-inspection completion rates. The council is required to formally reply to whether it agrees with grand jury findings and what it intends to do about them — both reports touch on public safety accountability issues that have been active in city policy debates for years.
On the broader affordable-housing front, the city's October 30th approval of the Rady Center Phase II loan agreement — a Salvation Army affordable-housing project downtown, Resolution R-317003 — is now recorded. The specific loan amount was not established in retrieved documents. The same October 30th session also produced updates to minimum-wage enforcement fees and an amendment to the city's Earned Sick Leave and Minimum Wage Ordinance, administrative actions that affect how the city enforces wage law for low-wage workers. On the rental market, countywide apartment rents average roughly $2,587 a month, up just over one percent year-over-year, though effective rents after concessions are reportedly slightly below their early-2024 levels — a reflection of the record apartment supply the county produced last year.