Construction crews raised and secured the final structural beam Wednesday on the Los Angeles Sparks' new $150 million practice facility in El Segundo, marking a milestone for a franchise that has never had a permanent home of its own since the WNBA tipped off in 1997. The team has bounced between practice sites for 30 seasons, including stints at Los Angeles Southwest College and El Camino College in Torrance, before landing a plot of land on Rosecrans Avenue that will finally serve as its dedicated headquarters.
The topping-off event, first detailed by the Los Angeles Daily News, comes as the Sparks try to turn a new building into a recruiting edge. Sparks team president Stacy Johns, who was hired in April, said the facility will help recruit players and represents part of rebuilding the franchise's championship culture. Johns said the Sparks front office wants the space to help retain talent while also drawing championship-level free agents, adding that the team must still build accountability, championship talent and teamwork internally.
A League's First Since 1997
The Sparks' new facility, designed by global architecture firm Gensler with interior work by women-run Studio Blitz, will span 55,000 square feet within El Segundo's Beach Cities Media Campus, according to WNBA.com. Construction began in early 2026, with the building scheduled to open before the start of the 2027 season in May. It will serve as the team's headquarters and will include the franchise's first Sparks-only locker room.
The complex sits next to The Point and across the street from Manhattan Village in El Segundo, according to the Daily News. Its most distinctive feature is what the team calls the league's first indoor-outdoor player sanctuary, which includes two basketball courts, a weight room, wellness spaces, hydrotherapy, dedicated nap rooms, and an outdoor spa pool.
Legacy Meets a Playoff Drought
Nneka Ogwumike, the Sparks' all-time leading scorer who re-signed with the team and plans to retire at the end of the season, said the facility represents the franchise's long-term investment in maintaining its legacy. “We have a home,” Ogwumike said, according to the Daily News, framing the team as no longer nomads after three decades of borrowed gyms. She said the building will improve the free-agency experience and help future players see the value of playing in Los Angeles long term, and that it could give the Sparks an advantage in recruiting talent.
That pitch matters because the Sparks have not made the playoffs since 2020 and have not reached the WNBA Finals since 2017, despite having won three WNBA championships earlier in franchise history. The team posted a 21-23 record in the 2025 season, missing the postseason by two games but marking a sharp recovery from an 8-32 record the year before, per Athlon Sports. The Sparks remain one of only three original WNBA franchises still standing from the league's inaugural 1997 season, alongside the New York Liberty and Phoenix Mercury, a distinction Hoodline noted in coverage of the WNBA's 30th anniversary celebrations in Brooklyn.
Voices From a Los Angeles Basketball Career
Ebony Hoffman, a Los Angeles native who played at USC in 2004 and later suited up for the Sparks from 2011 to 2013 during an 11-season WNBA career, told the Daily News that a state-of-the-art practice facility would significantly influence a free agent's decision on where to sign. Hoffman said the building would connect shooting, recovery and business-office resources in one place, something the franchise has never had under a single roof. She added that the clearest sign of the facility's success would be players who simply do not want to leave.
The Sparks have been owned since 2014 by Sparks LA Sports, an investment group led by Guggenheim Partners CEO Mark Walter and NBA Hall of Famer Magic Johnson alongside Stan Kasten, Todd Boehly, Bobby Patton and Eric Holoman, according to Athlon Sports. The franchise's path to that ownership group was a long one: original Lakers owner Jerry Buss owned the Sparks from the WNBA's 1997 inception until selling in 2006 to Gemini Basketball LLC, with ownership later passing to Williams Group Holdings before the current group took over, per Sportskeeda. While the new complex will host daily practices and front-office operations, the Sparks will continue playing home games at downtown LA's Crypto.com Arena under a lease extension signed in July 2024 that runs through 2029.
El Segundo's Growing Sports Corridor
The Sparks' project lands the team in a South Bay corridor that has quickly become a hub for professional sports real estate. Once complete, El Segundo will become the only city in the country to house the headquarters or practice facilities of five professional teams, including the Lakers, Kings, Chargers and Rugby LA, according to the City of El Segundo. The Sparks complex sits just miles from the Chargers' $250 million, 150,000-square-foot training campus known as The Bolt, which opened on 14 acres in July 2024 — a facility Hoodline covered when Chargers coaches wore women's sports shirts at their El Segundo camp.
The Sparks' $150 million project is part of a broader facility arms race reshaping the WNBA, following the Las Vegas Aces' $40 million facility in 2023, the Seattle Storm's $64 million performance center in 2024, the Phoenix Mercury's $100 million complex the same year, and the Indiana Fever's $78 million facility set for 2027, according to Cronkite News. Dedicated team facilities were virtually nonexistent in the league before 2023, making the Sparks' privately funded build part of a rapid shift in what teams are expected to offer players.
That shift has not looked the same everywhere. The Sparks' privately funded project stands in contrast to the Chicago Sky's $60 million practice facility in Bedford Park, Illinois, which faced legal challenges and public backlash in April 2026 over a $32.8 million taxpayer subsidy, according to The Real Deal. As the Sparks' beam-raising ceremony showed, the team is betting that a privately financed, amenity-heavy home base in El Segundo can do what three decades of borrowed gyms could not: help bring a fourth championship back to Los Angeles.
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