[read time: 4 minutes]
The conversation around sports and entertainment-anchored mixed-use development has centered, predictably, on large-scale venues. Nine-figure stadium and arena investments create destinations wherever they land. However, those aren’t the only project types creating new, desirable districts in cities across the country.
The facilities quietly reinventing this trend aren’t the ones making headline news. They’re ice centers in former mall footprints, amphitheaters sharing neighborhoods with urban residents, and community sports hubs that double as neighborhood anchors. The scale is different, but the question remains the same: how can these sports and entertainment anchors serve more than one kind of person, more than one kind of use, and more than one moment in time?
Reversing Course on Retail
The 2025 Capital One Shopping Report estimates that up to 87% of large shopping malls could close in the next decade, with closed malls sitting vacant for nearly 4 years. The problem isn’t density or demographics; the retail experience has gone digital—TikTok shop, Instagram ads, and direct-to-consumer shopping apps drive today’s commerce.
In contrast, sports and live entertainment are driven by fan energy and human connection. People are buying tickets months in advance to attend concerts and games, parents have their children’s hockey practice on the calendar three weeks out, and the youth sports tournament in town can fill a 150-room hotel and restaurant booths in a three-block radius. These aren’t passive draws. They’re committed, scheduled, recurring visits that retail cannot manufacture in the same way.
The Re-Introduction of the Community Ice Center
The community ice center is one example of how medium-sized sports facilities are creating opportunities similar to those of an arena. NHL organizations have built 11 dual-purpose practice-and-community ice facilities over the past decade, and the ones generating real impact didn’t stop the investment at the rink.
Normally, a community ice rink is exactly what it sounds like: cold air, hard seats, limited food, and not much reason to stick around once the skates come off. That formula has changed drastically. Food and beverage, branded hospitality spaces, year-round programming, and community-facing amenities now generate traffic and, ultimately, revenue, independent of what’s happening on the ice.
32 Bar & Grill at Kraken Community Iceplex, designed by Generator Studio.
At the Kraken Community Iceplex in Seattle, the team’s investment in visitor-centered spaces has resulted in a full-service restaurant that earned recognition as the best sports bar in the Pacific Northwest, and a Starbucks Community Store that generated more than $80,000 in charitable donations in its first year of operation.
Beyond the amenities, the ice center’s surrounding site shares in its success. The Kraken Community Iceplex occupies part of a former mall in Seattle’s Northgate neighborhood, a market that hadn’t seen a new sheet of ice in roughly forty years. Two years after opening, a hotel broke ground nearby, followed by apartments.
In Chicago, the Blackhawks Ice Center expansion is performing a similar function on the city’s West Side, a historically disinvested area, by adding ice, hospitality, and community programming to serve as the opening act for the 1901 Project – a $7 billion private development targeting economic opportunity across the surrounding neighborhood. Inside the center, amenities like Rocky’s Table and Tap—operated by Chicago’s 12-time James Beard Award–winning One Off Hospitality, and the Blackhawk’s Hall of Fame give residents more reasons to visit.
Rocky’s Table & Tap at the Blackhawks Ice Center, designed by Generator Studio.
A Model That Goes Beyond Ice Facilities
Ice centers aren’t the only buildings that can serve as mixed-use anchors. Not every market has an NHL team, but most markets have real demand for ice, courts, turf, and live music. According to Sports Business Journal, a record $1 billion in youth and amateur sports venues opened in 2025, and Live Nation is investing $1 billion to build 18 new concert venues across the U.S.
Activating any type of sports or entertainment component, at the right scale, with the right hospitality program built around it, can attract new visitors and spur development. Here’s what’s already happening:
The Vinyl Room at Morton Amphitheater, designed by Generator Studio.
Riverside, Missouri: Live Nation’s 16,000-capacity Morton Amphitheater debuts Summer 2026, bringing 40-plus shows to a corridor that recently added a hotel next to the KC Current Training Facility (also designed by Generator Studio), and the Current’s new Riverside Stadium and Performance Center. A mixed-use master plan is expected to continue to expand the area’s economic footprint.
Kirkland, Washington: The City of Kirkland is partnering with the Seattle Kraken to convert a former park-and-ride site into the Kraken Iceplex & Community Center—two ice rinks, a city-operated community center, and a local neighborhood restaurant.
Kansas City, Kansas: A newly opened 229-room Margaritaville Hotel sits five minutes from Homefield KC, a youth athletics showcase center, giving traveling families a lodging destination that serves as a vacation retreat, while remaining close to the competition.
Maryland Heights, Missouri: The St. Louis Blues’ Centene Community Ice Center’s outdoor ice rink transforms into a covered, 4,500-seat amphitheater operated by Live Nation in the warmer months—maximizing its programmatic footprint year-round.
Saint Louis Music Park at Centene Community Ice Center, designed by Generator Studio.
What Does This Mean for Future Development?
What’s happening across these sports and entertainment facilities is a specific expression of a broader shift in mixed-use development strategy. The stadium and arena will always draw a crowd. But the ice center, the amphitheater, and the community & youth athletic facilities are proving they can do the same work at a different scale.
They generate committed, recurring foot traffic, and when paired with the right hospitality program, they not only appeal across a broader demographic, they make every surrounding use more viable: the hotel fills on tournament weekends, the restaurants carry volume on weeknights, and the apartments command a premium for proximity to something worth living near.
These aren’t just economic development strategies. They’re acts of reclamation, converting the vacant concrete and forgotten retail remnants of a previous era into places that hum with the kind of life and vibrancy cities are supposed to have.