San Diego Sports Arena

An Icon, to be Refreshed

San Diego’s Midway District, home to the San Diego Sports Arena, sits in a location full of potential. The district offers all the amenities and convenience of 15-Minute Living. While it’s already a place of cultural activity, and a rich entertainment history, it’s largely underutilized and underdeveloped. Gehl partnered with 3XN | GXN to envision ‘Neighborhood Next’ – city’s next great neighborhood — an iconic place that is authentically San Diego and that finally reconnects the Midway district to nature and restore its purpose to our city.

Midway used to be defined by its relationship to the water, its vital jobs, and its housing for essential workers. But today, Midway is a sea of asphalt completely disconnected from its surroundings; a place people need to go, but don’t want to spend time.

The proposal developed by Gehl and 3XN | GXN details a community where people want to stay and live, with significant affordable housing as well as middle-income and market rate residential units. ‘Neighborhood Next’ proposes 5,000 homes for residents of all income levels, with cultural, commercial, and recreational spaces all weaved within green promenades and public parks. At least 25 percent of the units, or 1,350 apartment houses, will be reserved for families earning less than 80 percent of the area’s average income.

Inclusive by design

The team developed a vision to restore the neighborhood of Midway as a Cultural Heart of San Diego, to be realized in three key ways:

• Connect people to culture & nature

• Promote innovation & opportunity

• Attract people from every corner of the world

This team offered three possible design scenarios to realize this vision for the future of the site:

• Scenario 1: Renovation of the city’s existing Sports Arena

• Scenario 2: Replacement of the city’s Sports Arena, onsite

• Scenario 3: Replacement of the city’s Sports Arena, off-site.

Based on the teams findings they designed three possible scenarios for the future of the site: A)The Arena remains in its currentcurrent position; B) A new Arena is relocated in the upper corner of the parcel; C) A new Arena is relocated outside the parcel

And finally, the team formulated eight key ingredients for the neighborhood in any of the former scenarios, in order to accomplish the vision:

1. Reconnecting the River

2. Green Spine

3. Inner Loop

4. Edges and Boulevards

5. Neighborhood Streets & Alleys

6. Gathering Plazas of varying sizes

7. Local Pockets

8. Connections to the city and region at large

From a green link to the San Diego River, to onsite light transit, to reorienting the site to Mission Bay as a new front door to the community, ‘Neighborhood Next’ is a new paradigm for post-pandemic urban living.

Site Scale Strategies: Key to realizing the future potential of Neighborhood Next, the team developed 8 core ingredients of success.

Reconnect the River: The first ingredient in strategically reimagining and redesigning the site was to connect the 48.5 acre parcel back to the San Diego River, a key natural resource, currently separated from the site by a highway. Creating an engaging and seamless connection to the water is both a link and a defining feature of the Sports Arena’s public realm

Reconnect the River: The first ingredient in strategically reimagining and redesigning the site was to connect the 48.5 acre parcel back to the San Diego River, a key natural resource, currently separated from the site by a highway. Creating an engaging and seamless connection to the water is both a link and a defining feature of the Sports Arena’s public realm

The Gehl and 3XN | GXN, together with the developers: CONAM Management Corporation, have been selected for the second phase of a new master plan in San Diego, California in conjunction with a new sports complex and grounds.