It’s as close as you can get to living in the clubhouse,” says Nicholle Soendker, director of residential marketing for Cordish Living, which developed several baseball-meets-residential properties in the last few years, including One Cardinal Way in St. Louis and One Rangers Way in Arlington, Texas. “There’s also a genuine sense of community that comes from living alongside fellow fans—people who share a passion for the same team and the same neighborhood. That shared identity creates a natural social fabric that’s rare to find in a residential setting.”
Cordish is just one of the many companies getting in on the sports-driven development movement. According to a report from RCLCO, there were at least 16 MLB-anchored real estate projects as of 2025. Another nine are in the works.
When you add in other sports—including a growing number of minor-league organizations—there are at least 53 sports-anchored real estate developments on the horizon across the nation.
“There is over $100 billion of pipeline development in sports-anchored mixed-use districts,” says Erin Talkington, managing director at real estate consulting firm RCLCO. “I would bet a majority of team businesses include real estate by 2035—and the tipping point may even be sooner than that.”
A Housing Home Run
The baseball-meets-multifamily phenomenon stretches nationwide, and while every property is a little bit different, they all find unique and impactful ways to highlight their associated teams.
Take One Rangers Way, for example. The 299-unit project is located just steps away from Globe Life Field, home of MLB’s Texas Rangers. Its walls are lined with Rangers photography, artwork, and memorabilia (thanks to a partnership with the Rangers Hall of Fame & Museum), and some of its floor plans are even named after former players. The community also hosts events with Rangers legends like Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez.
As Soendker puts it, “The goal is to create an authentic sense of place that reflects the history and identity of each team, while still delivering a sophisticated residential environment—one where the fan experience is lived, not just displayed.”
One Rangers Way isn’t Cordish’s first foray into the baseball world. It also built the 297-unit One Cardinal Way in 2020—and its baseball tie-ins are just as strong.
“The connection to the team and ballpark is both physical and experiential,” Soendker says. “The building rises above the outfield of Busch Stadium, with more than 40% of residences offering direct views into the stadium. The amenity deck includes an infinity-edge pool and creates a truly unique vantage point for game days. Even when residents aren’t outside, they can catch the action through a live-stream-feed videoboard and audio piped in directly from the stadium.”
It’s not just major league fans that are getting the multifamily treatment, though. Minor league teams are seeing action, too. Case in point: In Chattanooga, Tennessee, a 300-unit apartment tower is going up over left field at Erlanger Park—home to the MiLB’s Lookouts, and, in San Antonio, two buildings are planned for the new Missions’ stadium project, which is set to open in 2028.
There’s also Yardley Flats, a recently opened development located in Knoxville, Tennessee, alongside the MiLB Smokies’ Covenant Health Park. That project features 223 units (with stadium views from 50% of those) and a community courtyard, where residents can view the field below.
“Our residents have a front-row seat to so many events that are happening at Covenant Health Park,” says Debbie Joiner, chief marketing officer at Forty2 LLC, which manages Yardley Flats. “Not only do they have awesome seats for the Knoxville Smokies, but One Knox Soccer, the monthlong Christmas lights, concerts, and, in May, the sold-out Savannah Bananas are coming to the park.”
In Business With the Big Leagues
The sports-driven properties are, of course, a boon to developers. They appeal to eager fan bases, as well as anyone looking to be close to the action—particularly in the larger, mixed-use districts that have become common around stadiums and arenas.
In the case of One Rangers Way, 60% of the project’s units were leased by its opening, and the community was fully leased up within one year. Joiner says she expects Yardley Flats to be leased up by the one-year mark as well.
“Apartment residents are looking for easy access to fun,” Joiner says. “So we anticipate this becoming more popular in the multifamily space.”
But it’s more than just fun. Since many of these sports-anchored projects are partnerships with the teams themselves, they also come with other benefits, too. They can reduce risk, increase a property’s marketability, and even strengthen tenant retention in the long run.
“For real estate developers and investors, the focus is increasing, because sports put the ‘mix’ back into mixed-use and offer a partnership structure that reduces the carry-risk compared to a typical long-term, potentially multi-cycle project buildout,” Talkington says. “Sports districts also generate rent and value premiums for each real estate asset type, improving project feasibility and marketability to investors and offering additional revenue streams like sponsorship/signage districts that are typically monetized in partnership with teams.”
With One Rangers Way and One Cardinal Way, for example, the Texas Rangers and St. Louis Cardinals both had 50% stakes in the developments. Soendker called them “true 50-50 partnerships” and “collaborative efforts” between Cordish and the two teams.
That level of organizational buy-in is growing, too. RCLCO research shows that 61% of existing sports-anchored developments have involvement from the team or its owner. For MLB developments that are just now in the planning stages, a whopping 89% have owner/team involvement.
It’s easy to see why, too: Residents in on-site and adjacent residential buildings feed back into the business, filling the stadium, merchandise stores, and surrounding restaurants and businesses—even on days when teams are out of town or off-season.
“Real estate is a new and untapped revenue source for most sports ownership groups, and it isn't yet subject to revenue sharing with the leagues or players,” Talkington says. “Door-to-door game-day experience also matters more than it did 10 to 20 years ago. Now, your competition is a pretty high-quality viewing experience on someone’s phone or TV.”
As Talkington puts it, “Game day extends outside the fare gates. The real estate outside a stadium offers teams another way to connect with—and monetize—the fan experience.”
America’s Favorite Pastime
Baseball isn’t the only sport that’s going hard into real estate, but it’s certainly the most dominant. As of 2025, the MLB had 16 sports-anchored real estate developments in 2025, according to RCLCO. The National Football League (NFL) and National Hockey League (NHL) were next with eight and seven, respectively, while the National Basketball League (NBA) had six and Major League Soccer (MLS) had just four.
Why does baseball reign supreme? Most of it comes down to just how often games are played in the sport.
MLB teams have 162-game seasons, amounting to more than 80 games at each home stadium, and the season runs for much of the year (from March through October, in many cases). When you throw in that many of these stadiums also host concerts, festivals, and other events that bring in year-round customers, that’s a lot of potential profits for both developers and teams alike.
“The frequency of activation is the key to a sports venue being able to catalyze impact for the surrounding project,” Talkington says.
Still, non-baseball sports organizations are starting to see the potential. The NFL has nine developments currently in the works, while the NHL has eight. The NBA and MLS both have six in the planning stages.
The NBA’s Atlanta Hawks, for instance, are in the midst of developing Centennial Yards, a $5 billion mixed-use project to adjoin its State Farm Arena, while MLS’ Kansas City Current is building out its Berkley Riverfront area. The district will boast over 400 apartment units and thousands
of square feet of retail and dining space.
“New venues across all leagues are laser-focused on designing for more frequent use and varying event types, so we expect the differences by sport to level out over time,” Talkington says.
What’s on Deck
Sports partnerships are a burgeoning industry for multifamily developers, and analysis shows the industry is likely only at the beginning of this trend.
Per RCLCO’s report, there are 53 sports-anchored real estate developments either under construction or planned across MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLS. An additional 50 stadium leases are set to expire between 2030 and 2039, and a growing interest in women’s professional sports—and the stadiums that are dedicated to them—will offer even more possibilities for development in the coming years.
And if experts are right, you can bet many of those projects—if not all—will have multifamily communities within them.
“Almost all new sports-anchored districts include a multifamily or residential element,” Talkington says. “On-site and nearby residents provide critical support for retail, food and beverage, and entertainment options that would otherwise be quiet on non-game days, helping those businesses thrive year-round.”