Sunrise Mall has been on life support for years—12 store closures in 2025 alone told you everything you needed to know about the death of traditional retail in Citrus Heights. But instead of letting the 14-acre site become another cautionary tale of suburban decline, the city is betting big on something completely different: ice hockey, live music, soccer fields, and a 4,000-seat multipurpose arena.
The Sunrise Sports Center represents a genuine shift in how Sacramento’s suburbs are thinking about abandoned retail space. It’s not a desperate attempt to fill vacant storefronts with outlet shops or dollar stores—it’s a $120 million reimagining of what a community gathering place can be in 2026. The Mettle Shop, the economic development company behind Golden 1 Center downtown and Sutter Health Park in West Sacramento, is leading the charge alongside the city. They’re planning two NHL-sized ice sheets, 100,000 square feet of outdoor sports fields, and enough event space to host everything from regional hockey tournaments to concerts. The projected 1.2 million annual visitors and $26.2 million in economic impact aren’t trivial numbers.
What’s particularly smart about this deal is the financing structure. Unlike traditional municipal bonds that rely on taxpayers to foot the bill, these bonds will be repaid through project revenue—meaning Citrus Heights residents aren’t carrying the debt if something goes sideways. City Economic Development Director Meghan Huber calls it a“catalyst”for the larger Sunrise Tomorrow vision, which aims to triple the site’s density and create a new mixed-use district with hotels, residential communities, and entertainment venues. In effect, Citrus Heights is trying to build a downtown where there was just asphalt and empty parking lots.
Laura Storm, Executive Vice President of the Mettle Shop, frames this as addressing a real gap in the region’s recreational infrastructure. Her research dating back to 2019 revealed a critical shortage of ice rinks in Sacramento—a problem that’s been quietly squeezing local hockey families and recreational skaters. Storm, who plays hockey herself in an adult league, understands firsthand how ice sports build community.“Not everyone has to play hockey,”she said,“but it certainly does build community.”That’s the thesis behind this whole project: sports and entertainment as civic glue.
If everything stays on schedule, crews will break ground in the first quarter of 2027, with completion taking 12 to 18 months. That puts opening day sometime in late 2028 or early 2029—close enough to feel real, far enough away that skepticism is warranted. But for a region that’s watched suburban malls become ghost towns, the Sunrise Sports Center represents something worth watching: a gamble that community spaces can evolve, that dead retail can be reborn as something vital, and that ice hockey might just be the anchor tenant Sacramento didn’t know it needed.
About the Author
Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson is a contributor to LocalBeat, covering local news and community stories.
