Soccer venue, development are proposed for Del Mar parking lot

A proposal by the San Diego Wave women’s soccer team to build a 12,000- to 16,000-seat stadium in the southeast parking lot at Del Mar was presented Tuesday to the fairgrounds board that oversees the racetrack property.

“This project we think could be sort of what we’re looking for to achieve a long-term home for the San Diego Wave and a women’s purpose-built stadium,” said Zachary Leichtman Levine, whose family owns the National Women’s Soccer League club.

The proposal made to the 22nd District Agricultural Association board is part of an ambitious, three-phase development plan. The project would include the stadium, an adjacent parking tower, a tram to cover the 324-acre property, a 350,000-square-foot retail and restaurant center, a 300-room hotel and a 125,000-square-foot convention center to replace existing fairgrounds halls. It all would be paid for by investors led by the Wave owners. It would not interrupt racing.

“You’ll notice the racetrack meet and the fair, all that continues through the phase of our work here,” said Leichtman Levine, who is chief financial officer of Levine Leichtman Capital Partners.

Artist renderings of the finished project were presented as “conceptual” and not illustrated to exact scale. The cost of the entire venture never came up.

“As part of all the feasibility that we’re going to be doing and the money we’re going to be spending through all the site plan and studies and research that we’re going to do, this is all the stuff that we’re going to need to discuss with you guys,” said Bobby Assil, CEO of 88 Place Acquisitions, a Los Angeles-based colleague of Leichtman Levine. “From now until November, we’re more than happy to meet and talk as much as individually that we’re able to meet with you guys and discuss it and try to figure out what is the additional things that you guys may want after our presentation that would be concerning for you that you want to see come to life on the property.”

One dollar figure that was presented was a preliminary amount to build the stadium.

“I think our early estimates are somewhere in the $10-plus-million range that we will pay for,” Leichtman Levine said. “What we view here is a way to create durable new revenue streams not only for the fairgrounds but for San Diego and the surrounding communities, in addition to adding and supporting the local infrastructure, local environment, animals, wetlands, etc., and continuing to support a fairground and racing history and other non-main-fairground events that already take place on the site.”

The Del Mar board did not take any action on the presentation Tuesday. Instead, Leichtman Levine said the investment group, which claims to manage $20 billion of capital assets, wants the Del Mar board to open a negotiating window when it meets next month.

“We are looking for a two-year exclusive period to start that allows us to spend the money and do the work and get up to speed in terms of what the entire project is going to look like,” Leichtman Levine said. “During that time we’ll be working with you on a number of definitive documents to get to an agreement in full and some order.”

Becky Bartling, who recently returned to the Del Mar Fair in April to become CEO after 10 years running the Sonoma County Fair in Santa Rosa, Calif., said she was happy to hear from a developer who was not asking for money.

“We went through the masterplan process in the 2000s for several years and ultimately finalized it with the (environmental-impact report),” said Bartling, who had been chief operating officer at the Del Mar Fair from 2003 to 2015. “The challenge was we didn’t have any money, so nothing got done. Anything that comes before us, and this plan does that, it needs to get paid by the developer. That’s the great opportunity with this project. If there’s another project out there with a similar concept, those are the things we need to look at, because we don’t have the money. It’s exciting to have somebody who does.”

Currently the Wave plays its home matches at Snapdragon Stadium, which opened in 2022 next to the former site of Qualcomm Stadium. The primary tenant is San Diego State University athletics followed in order of scheduling priority by concerts and special events and then San Diego FC of Major League Soccer. The Wave, whose regular season runs from March to November, falls fourth on that list.

“Women tend to be considered second-, third- or sometimes even fourth-class citizens,” Leichtman Levine said. “What we found at Snapdragon is something resembling a fourth-class citizen. ... We would like to be able to provide a supportive sort of women’s purpose-built stadium for the San Diego Wave and a way to support women and children and families in the community.”

The board generally sounded receptive to the presentation, which was vetted first by a master-site planning committee that included Bartling, board chairperson Sam Nejabat and board member Mark Arabo.

“I think we walked in very skeptical,” Arabo said. “We ended up very happy, for myself, at least. I think it’s important to know that what we’re presenting is just a study. They’re not saying we’re going to develop it. They’re going to say, can you do it? Can you not? Can we do this? Can we do that? It’s just a study. ... I like the renderings. I still have a lot more questions to ask, but I think they’re all preliminary. I like that we’re going to go really slow, definitely crawl, crawl, walk, run.”

Horse Racing Nation covered Tuesday’s board meeting by monitoring a live stream provided on YouTube by the Del Mar Fair.