An $81 million mixed-income apartment project planned to go up near Chukchansi Park — a decade-old idea that has been killed and then revived in recent years — will get $11.7 million in loans from the city of Fresno and more time.
The Park at South Stadium project promises an eight-story building with 174 units on three city-owned parcels adjacent to Chukchansi Park’s outfield. A development agreement the city approved in November with developers Mehmet Noyan and Jeff Isenstadt said the builders had until Feb. 28 to close escrow on the land and secure the project’s financing.
But the City Council on Thursday extended the deadline to May 15 and also approved two loans for the project while its builders seek more money from the bond market. Though the project has been delayed for years, Mayor Jerry Dyer says it is necessary for downtown Fresno’s revitalization.
“These particular three lots that we’re speaking of, they’ve been vacant for decades with an inability to develop them,” Dyer said during the meeting. “It is as close to shovel-ready as possible.”
The project is one of several in the area that have stalled for years and are asking for money from the city’s revolving loan fund for downtown and Chinatown developers. This project, though, has languished longer than most.
Fresno City Council killed apartment project in 2022, revived it last year
Noyan and his previous partner, Terrence Frazier, began working the plan’s $15 million phase 1 in 2009 and got the project’s first development agreement approved by the city in 2016, according to Bee reporting from that year. At the time, it was intended to produce 51 units atop 10,000 square feet of retail space.
In the years that followed, amendments to the agreement yielded plans for 99 apartments at The Park at South Stadium, but not one unit was ever built. In a controversial vote in 2022, city officials killed the project by choosing not to extend the agreement’s deadline. Its projected costs had doubled to about $32 million since its inception, and Councilmember Mike Karbassi argued the developers had just taken too long to start building.
The council in November opted to give the project another chance when it voted to approve a new development agreement with Noyan. The new version would cost $84 million and would produce 160 units — 64 of them income restricted — above retail, conference rooms and a fitness center, according to the agreement.
When it extended the project’s deadline Thursday, the council approved an amended agreement that says the project will now cost $81 million and produce 174 units: 104 market rate and 70 income-restricted for 55 years. The plans still include retail space, conference rooms and the fitness center.
According to the new agreement, the apartment building’s grand opening is now planned for July 2028.
Where do the city loans to Fresno developers come from?
The $11.7 million the city is loaning to the Park at South Stadium project has three parts.
An $8 million loan comes from the city’s revolving loan fund intended to help downtown developers cover their final gaps in financing. It’s a 5-year loan with a 4.8% annual interest rate.
The city launched the fund with $20 million last year, pulling from the latest $100 million Fresno has received in state money to renovate downtown Fresno’s infrastructure and incentivize home-building in the area. (The council on Thursday also OK’d an $8 million loan from this fund for the Uptown Apartments project, which is being developed by Fresno’s Lance-Kashian firm and has also stalled for years.)
Another $3 million loan for the project — which carries a 55-year term with 3% annual interest — is coming from the city’s housing division, Dyer said. He said the city is also “loaning back” to the developers $727,000 that they were using to purchase the city land where they are planning to build.
Dyer said the loans are necessary for long-stalled downtown projects because “many of these projects do not pencil, they are not profitable.” But he said he believes The Park at South Stadium will be catalyst for more housing construction in the area.
“This will be the first truly legitimate housing project in the South Stadium area,” he said.
This story was originally published February 26, 2026 at 3:21 PM.
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Erik is a graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism, where he helped launch an effort to better meet the news needs of Spanish-speaking immigrants. Before that, he served as editor-in-chief of his community college student newspaper, Riverside City College Viewpoints, where he covered the impacts of the Salton Sea’s decline on its adjacent farm worker communities in the Southern California desert. Erik’s work is supported through the California Local News Fellowship program.