2026 should be the decisive year for the relaunch of the San Francesco area. The SportLifeCity company, controlled by Milan, which is the owner of the land proposed in recent years to host the Rossoneri stadium, in dialogue with Francesco Squeri’s administration has once again shown itself determined to invest in the creation of a project dedicated to sport. It seems that the idea is to focus on cutting-edge facilities with an arena of around 16 thousand seats surrounded by bars, restaurants and services. And it doesn’t mean that the new equipment is intended for football. Especially in this phase, oriented towards basketball, in which Milan is preparing to become the home of an NBA franchise.
The hypotheses that have been circulating in sporting circles are that Milan, Inter and Olimpia Milano would be interested in forming a team by working together or through a solitary bet. In particular, there is talk of AC Milan’s involvement in the launch of the new NBA Europe, scheduled for 2027. The San Donato area could play a strategic role. For now there are no confirmations, but the next few months could be decisive with a project that will be officially presented to the Municipality. At that point a new urban planning process will begin as the sentence that came out of the Regional Administrative Court last September, which accepted the request of the Business District which claimed the share of usable greenery foreseen in the old agreement, canceled with a single stroke the resolution with which the former administration of Andrea Checchi had given the green light to the SportLifeCity project which envisaged a 16,000 seat arena. Councilor Massimiliano Mistretta shows openness by stating: «As an administration we hope to be faced with a quality project that redevelops a highly degraded area of the territory which presents a series of worrying safety problems like the entire surrounding area which could also benefit from a possible investment». Already in the first months of 2026 the attention of politics and the people of San Donato will return to the future of San Francesco.
