The pieces of Carson's former Cal Compact Landfill that now have signatures, financing and road money behind them are warehouses and light-industrial buildings. The luxury outlet mall that people across the South Bay still connect with the site has no publicly named developer, no reported groundbreaking and no opening date. Anyone comparing Carson with Torrance, Gardena or Lomita should picture the land along the 405 as a future employment center. Shopping there is still a possibility, not a plan.
That gap matters most to anyone weighing a home near Del Amo Boulevard and Main Street. The site has been pitched as a destination for so long that it is easy to price a house as if the destination already exists.
How a mall plan unwound
The 157 acres sat vacant for decades after the Cal Compact Landfill closed. The landfill operated for only six years, but its buried waste made the land expensive to develop. Earlier ideas included an NFL stadium and large shopping centers, and none of them got built, according to the Daily Breeze.
The outlet plan dates to 2018. That year, CAM-Carson LLC, a joint venture of Simon and Macerich, reached an agreement with the city to build a luxury outlet mall on a 46-acre part of the site called "Cell 2." It was expected to bring 1,700 construction jobs and 1,800 permanent jobs. The projects broke down in sequence:
- 2020. More contamination turned up, remediation costs rose, and CAM-Carson filed an $80 million lawsuit against the city.
- October 2022. The parties agreed to pause the litigation, and CAM-Carson took on the remediation work.
- December 2023. The City Council approved $26 million for CAM-Carson to continue remediation.
- June 2024. CAM-Carson told the city it was leaving the project.
- October 27, 2025. A settlement ended all of the development agreements. CAM-Carson received $35.1 million from the Carson Reclamation Authority. That money came from another developer, which got the right to negotiate for the property in return.
The settlement left the mall's future unresolved. The Daily Breeze reported that no construction had taken place and that it was unknown whether the new developer, whose name had not been released, would keep a luxury outlet concept. The paper's June 2026 capital budget story said the city would "finally get" a 400,000-square-foot outlet mall with a new developer, but it did not name that developer. The research behind this post found no report since the settlement of a mall groundbreaking, a construction start or a target opening.
What the council approved in September
The other part of the site moved quickly while the mall was stuck. In September 2026, the Carson City Council approved amendments to The District at South Bay Specific Plan and an amended development agreement with Carson Goose Owner LLC. The Carson Compass reported that the ordinances were adopted on September 15. Development actions were also taken earlier, at the September 1 meeting.
The state's Notice of Determination, posted September 16, lays out the details:
- Five light-industrial buildings with ancillary office space
- 1,567,090 square feet in total
- 1,368 parking spaces
- The previously approved Carson Country Mart is removed
- No changes to Planning Areas 1 and 2
- No increase in the total light-industrial square footage allowed
The approval swaps a retail piece for industrial buildings. The Carson Country Mart was the part of the plan most likely to give nearby homeowners a place to shop and eat, and that piece is gone. In 2025, the Daily Breeze described this part of the land as "Carson Place," with retail, restaurants, a performance stage, a 12-acre park and six industrial buildings. The approved plan has five buildings, and the Country Mart is out.
Carson Goose Owner is connected to Faring. The state's notice lists Carson Goose Owner as the project applicant, and its contact uses a Faring email address. The only public comment the Carson Compass reported from the September meetings came from labor representatives, who supported the project's union-labor and local-hiring commitments.
The money already committed
The clearest way to see which parts of the site will actually get built is to look at what has been financed.
| Commitment | Amount | What it serves |
|---|---|---|
| EB-5 loan agreement approved by the Carson Reclamation Authority on Aug. 18, 2026 | Up to $180 million | Remediation systems on Cells 4, 5 and part of Cell 3 |
| Road reconstruction inside the 157-acre parcel, FY 2026–27 | More than $35 million | Streets within the site |
| Lenardo Drive project | Measure R, lease revenue bonds, traffic mitigation and Metro funding | Main access and utility route on the site |
The EB-5 loan goes to Cells 3, 4 and 5. Those are the same cells that came up in the Reclamation Authority's September agenda, in closed-session real property negotiations with Carson Goose Owner. Under the structure presented to the Authority, the Authority is the borrower because the remediation systems will become public infrastructure. The private development entities are expected to cover repayment.
The city's share of the street costs goes back to the original mall deal. "There was a cooperative agreement from the very beginning with the CRA, CAM-Carson and the city," City Attorney Sunny Soltani said at the June 16 council meeting, as reported by the Daily Breeze, "where the city agreed to provide the funding for building the streets because traditionally, cities provide the funding for that." The city's road obligation was written for a shopping center, and the city is still paying it. The tenants who will use those roads first now appear to be industrial.
The work isn't finished. The Carson Compass noted that remediation and infrastructure still have to be completed before any buildings can go up, and the reporting gives no date for vertical construction.
Why industrial won the land
Demand explains the shift. In Q2 2026, Colliers reported 5.2 million square feet of industrial leasing in the South Bay and 1,296,930 square feet of net absorption. Vacancy fell to 4.5%, which was 130 basis points lower than a year earlier. Asking rents held at $1.48 per square foot NNN that quarter. That was the first flat quarter after 11 straight quarterly declines, though rents were still 6.5% lower than a year earlier and 30% below the Q2 2023 peak. Colliers linked new construction in the region to demand from advanced manufacturing and aerospace. At the end of Q2, more than 1.2 million square feet of South Bay industrial space was under construction.
Those numbers don't prove why the developers chose industrial for this particular site. No public analysis compares retail and industrial returns for the 157 acres. They do show a market where tenants are taking space and rents have stopped falling. A remediated site next to the 405, owned by a developer paying for its own cleanup, fits that demand well. The outlet mall has been through two developers, several lawsuits and a settlement, and it still has no named builder.
What this means for buying near the site
Carson home prices reflect the city as it stands today. Over the six months tracked through early October 2026, Carson's median closed price was about $782,500. The middle half of sales closed between $655,000 and $875,000, and the median price was about $505 per square foot. The figures come from a tracked sample of 250 closings, not complete county records, so they are a guide rather than an official count. The same sample put the median time from listing to contract at 33 days. Across Los Angeles County, the California Association of Realtors reported an August 2026 existing single-family median of $946,950, up 1.7% from a year earlier, with a median of 30 days on market.
Carson sales cluster in a narrow price range, which makes recent comparable sales a reliable anchor. If a seller near Del Amo or Main Street prices a home above that range because "the outlets are coming," the premium rests on a project that currently has no developer on record. The approved part of the plan is an industrial employment center: five buildings, 1,368 parking spaces and union-labor and local-hiring commitments that labor groups supported at the council meeting.
The road budget around the site is more concrete. Carson's FY 2026–27 capital program includes $12.8 million to widen Sepulveda Boulevard to three lanes in each direction, $7.7 million for Avalon Boulevard between Lomita Boulevard and 223rd Street, $6.2 million for Main Street between Lomita Boulevard and 228th Street, and $2 million for Lomita Boulevard. Another $1.5 million is set aside for intelligent transportation upgrades meant to improve traffic flow on Carson Street between the 405 and Figueroa Street. The budget gives funding amounts but no start or finish dates for individual streets, so construction timing near a particular home is a question for the city's Public Works Department.
No public truck-trip estimate for the industrial buildings turned up in the sources reviewed. Anyone weighing a home along Del Amo, which separates the parcel from the Evolve South Bay apartments, can ask the City of Carson whether the 2022 environmental review, which the city found covers this project, estimates traffic from the new buildings.
Quick answers
Is the outlet mall canceled? No public source says so. The original developer's agreements ended in the October 2025 settlement, and the replacement developer has not been publicly named. Whether a luxury outlet will still be built is an open question.
Where on the site does the industrial development go? Planning Area 3. The September approval covers that area and leaves Planning Areas 1 and 2 unchanged.
When will buildings go up? No date has been reported. Remediation systems and site infrastructure, including Lenardo Drive, have to come first, and the EB-5 financing approved in August is meant to pay for that groundwork.
Who is overseeing the land? The Carson Reclamation Authority. Its September agenda included negotiations over Cells 3, 4 and 5 at 20400 S. Main Street.
If you're pricing or buying a home near the 157 acres and want to know how the September approvals and the planned road work might affect a particular street, Cindy and Tiffany at Kawata Team can go through recent comparable sales with you and track each new Reclamation Authority action as it comes up. Contact Cindy & Tiffany for a personalized market consultation.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
