A new 7,500-seat arena is set to be built in the Sacramento, California suburb of Rancho Cordova as part of a mixed-use development after the city council gave the $175 million project the green light.
Sports Business Journal said an agreement with KozPure Development and Alpha One Sports and Entertainment means the project can go ahead.
The arena, designed by Perkins+Will and built by McCarthy, will be home to Major Arena Soccer League (MASL) and MASLW teams, which will debut in the fall 2027 season.
The deal includes nearly a dozen elements, one of which is a method similar to tax increment financing that enables some of the city’s revenue generated by the project to go back into the roughly 28-acre development.
Another stipulation leases a city-owned, 13-acre parcel to the developers for 35 years. The developers hope to break ground in the first quarter of 2026.
KozPure CEO Josh Wood said, “We don’t have a downtown city center, so we wanted to create that for our city. Turning a suburban city into a destination for our region.
“Rancho Cordova has long envisioned a downtown, but it has never had one and we’ve put together additional land around it, to start the center of our new kind of city center for the region.
“If you drive from Sacramento, you leave the towers, and that’s kind of the urbanized area of our region. And what we plan to do is create the second urbanized downtown city center, and that’s why we’re calling it the Sacramento-Cordova region now.”
Besides the arena and public plaza, the development entails a minimum of 640 residential units, at least two hotels with a minimum 800-room count, one of which must be four-star quality, a cardroom, and a retail and dining-focused portion of the district.
KozPure — led by Wood and company president Charanjeet Kaur Tiwana-Purewal — was awarded the two teams and is sourcing additions to its ownership group from the local community.
The goal is to have the arena completed before November 2027. Announcements on who will run the venue and its concessions service will be made in the coming weeks, Wood said, as well as additional venue tenants.
Midnite Events, a Northern California electronic music promoter, is working with the developers to program the venue and district with an expectation of 40 shows (not all electronic dance music) annually.
Combat sports likely will be another regular part of the arena’s event calendar. Wood expects the arena and plaza to host 200 events annually, bringing events to Rancho Cordova that previously would have bypassed the entire Sacramento market.
Continue to follow Coliseum for latest updates on venues business news. Coliseum is dedicated towards building the best global community of sports and entertainment venue executives and professionals creating better and more profitable venues.
Become a member of the only Global Sports Venue Alliance and connect with stadiums, arenas and experts from around the world. Apply for membership at coliseum-online.com/alliance and make use of the 365Coliseum Business.