San Diego voters twice approved lifting the height limit that blocks this project. Courts three times set those decisions aside. Five years on, it is still a parking lot.
The site is roughly 49.23 acres of City owned surplus land in the Midway District, two miles from the coast, currently occupied by the San Diego Sports Arena and its surrounding parking.
| Component | Figure |
|---|---|
| Total homes | 4,254 |
| Income restricted homes | 2,000, restricted at 80% of area median income or below |
| Arena | 16,000 seats, 165 feet tall, roughly 25 stories |
| Public park | Nearly 15 acres |
| Site | 49.23 acres of City surplus land |
Unit counts, affordability restriction, park acreage and site acreage from the City of San Diego's final report to the Planning Commission, September 2025. Arena height from Voice of San Diego, August 21, 2026. The City Council selected the Midway Rising team in September 2022.
No total project cost appears in the City's published materials. Figures in circulation elsewhere are not sourced here.
A thirty foot height limit applies across San Diego's coastal zone, and the Midway District sits inside it. Four thousand homes on forty nine acres is not achievable at thirty feet.
In November 2020, San Diego voters approved Measure E to lift that limit in Midway, with 56.6 percent in favor. A court set it aside. The City returned to the ballot in 2022. That measure also passed, and was also set aside.
On October 18, 2025, the Fourth District Court of Appeal ruled against the City a third time, finding it had not completed the required environmental study before raising the limit.
Mayor Todd Gloria said failure was not an option, announced an appeal to the California Supreme Court, and extended the exclusive negotiating agreement with Midway Rising by one year, to December 4, 2026.
That date is the expiration of an exclusive negotiating agreement, which is the period during which the City negotiates with this developer and no other. It is not a construction deadline and the City's own language does not describe it as a cancellation date. It has already been extended at least once to arrive at December 2026. Coverage describing it as a hard deadline to close a deal reads more into it than the City's published statement supports.
With the courts repeatedly finding the environmental review inadequate, the Legislature passed Senate Bill 344 on August 31, 2026, allowing the project to rely on the City's existing environmental review rather than beginning again. The Assembly passed it 72 to 8. The Senate passed it unanimously.
The Governor has until September 30, 2026 to sign or veto it.
Even with a signature, the City Council must still certify the environmental report, finalize lease terms, and approve the plan for retaining tax revenue for infrastructure.
The two thousand income restricted homes are the central public justification for this project and the reason it received its own legislation. It is worth knowing what the restriction actually is.
Those units are restricted at 80 percent of area median income or below. Area median income in San Diego is $130,900. The 80 percent limits, per the San Diego Housing Commission's 2026 table:
| Household size | 80% AMI limit |
|---|---|
| One person | $97,950 |
| Two people | $111,950 |
| Four people | $139,900 |
The four person limit sits above area median income, because HUD adjusts these limits upward in high housing cost areas.
For context: 17 percent of San Diego County households could afford the county's median priced detached single family home in the second quarter of 2026, which required an income of $268,000. That figure is the California Association of Realtors affordability index and it measures detached single family homes only.
In October 2023, before the court fights were resolved, two components came out of the plan.
250 middle income units were eliminated. Those were intended for households earning 80 to 120 percent of area median income, the range that earns too much to qualify for the income restricted units and not enough to buy at market. The reasons given were high interest rates, limited financing, and difficulty securing the bond financing the developer had anticipated.
A 200 room hotel was also removed, after a large previously undisclosed sewer line was found under the site. Setback requirements made the planned location unusable and the arena was relocated into that footprint.
A councilmember stated publicly that the removed units would end up market rate or luxury instead.
The City's September 2025 final report to the Planning Commission describes the project in two phases. It sets out which structures come down in each phase, what is built, and the sequence of work.
There is no breakdown of the income restricted units by phase. There are no construction dates or deadlines for those units. There is no provision describing what happens to them if subsidy funding is unavailable. The only language on timing is that implementation "is anticipated to occur in two, multi-year phases which each will have individual horizontal and vertical project components."
Separately, and this is a different kind of statement, commentary published September 20, 2026 in the Times of San Diego argues that the development agreement permits the income restricted units to be delayed if subsidy funding cannot be secured, that the provision applies to phase one and to subsequent phases, and that 425 units are scheduled in phase one with roughly 225 in later phases.
That is one writer's reading of the development agreement, published as opinion. It is not the City's characterization and it is not independently verified here. The agreement is available through the City's Midway Rising document page.
Three MJIQ communities sit closest to the site. All three figures below are on the same measurement basis, so they can be read against each other.
| Community | Median sale price | 5 year trend | Months of supply | Days on market |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Point Loma | $1.83M | +27% | 2.6 | 17 |
| Ocean Beach | $1.38M | +25% | 2.5 | 9 |
| Downtown | $680,000 | +16% | 8.4 | 44 |
Source: InfoSparks / CRMLS (ShowingTime Plus), Residential, data through August 2026. Same basis across all three.
The contrast is the point. The two coastal communities adjacent to the site are tight, with supply under three months and homes selling in under three weeks. Downtown, which is condominium heavy, carries 8.4 months of supply and takes six weeks to sell.
Four thousand two hundred homes would land between those two markets. Which of them it resembles depends entirely on what actually gets built, and in what order.
September 30, 2026. The Governor signs or vetoes Senate Bill 344.
December 4, 2026. The exclusive negotiating agreement expires, unless extended again.
The California Supreme Court. Whether it takes the City's appeal of the height limit ruling.
Any published phasing schedule for the two thousand income restricted units. As of this writing, none appears in the City's planning report.