Sleep Train Arena in Sacramento is being demolished. Here’s what will be built on the site

A demolition six years in the making is tearing down Sleep Train Arena in North Natomas, home for nearly three decades of the Sacramento Kings, concerts and events like Disney on Ice.

So what will replace the building locals lovingly refer to as “the old barn?”

The 183-acre site surrounding the arena – long named Arco Arena and briefly called Power Balance Pavilion – will eventually be transformed into a major hospital complex, hundreds of homes, parks and a school. The new neighborhood will be called Innovation Park.

A Sacramento Kings relocation to Seattle was thwarted in 2013 and the franchise was sold to an ownership group led by Vivek Ranadive. That deal relied upon replacing Sleep Train Arena with a new downtown facility, and Golden 1 Center opened three years later.

The Kings’ move downtown left an enormous hole in North Natomas. Neighborhood residents have long advocated for a large employment center on the site, fearful that an empty Sleep Train or a development consisting entirely of homes would not do enough to replace the economic impact of the arena.

City leaders are confident they have that plan. The Sacramento City Council voted in February to approve a proposal to build a teaching hospital operated by California Northstate University. The main hospital building is expected to stand up to 14 stories tall and should take about eight years to construct.

“I refused to cave to anything less,” Sacramento Councilwoman Angelique Ashby said before the City Council voted 9-0 in February to approve rezoning the arena land to allow for the hospital and other uses. “I need to thank my community for trusting me and giving me 10 years to get to this solution.”

In addition to the hospital campus, the arena site will one day include hundreds of homes, retail space, a childcare center, 25 acres of open space, and bike and pedestrian trails. So far, formal plans have only been released for the 730,000 square-foot hospital.

The Natomas Unified School District in January agreed to purchase 12 acres on the arena site from the Kings for $6 million. A new school there could focus on STEM – science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

City officials have said an estimated 1,500 construction jobs will be created to build the hospital, plus an additional 6,000 permanent jobs once the hospital and medical school open.

This story was originally published August 12, 2022 at 5:00 AM.