In the final analysis it came down to the land — or more precisely, the value of the land.

The 63-acre site that has operated as Irwindale Speedway for nearly every year since 1999 is destined to become home to a 700,000-square-foot outdoor mall.

The return? The city has projected that the mall would create more than 5,000 jobs and generate $2.6 million in annual sales tax revenue.

The plan to convert the racetrack to a retail destination was solidified in March 2015 when city officials unanimously approved plans to demolish Irwindale Speedway to make way for the mall. The approval involved a zone change, site plan and design review and certification of a final Environmental Impact Report.

Caught off guard

But none of that blunted Jim Cohan’s surprise when he was abruptly notified by the property owners on Wednesday that the speedway would be winding down in January.

Cohan, CEO of Team 211 Entertainment, which runs the Irwindale Event Center housing the speedway, said they were already scheduling the 2018 season. The speedway had previously been told it could keep operating until construction began on the mall. And that construction has yet to begin.

So the 2018 season is off the table, but Cohan said the remainder of this year will play out as planned.

“Our full 2017 schedule of NASCAR, Drag Strip, LA Racing Experience events and special events will run as published,” Cohan said in a statement on the Irwindale Event Center website. “And, in fact, we’re planning on adding a couple of extra events to the calendar to honor all of the competitors who raced and wrenched here at Irwindale since it opened in 1999.”

Irwindale Outlet Partners LLC purchased the property in 2013 for $22 million — two years after Irwindale Speedway LLC declared bankruptcy — and it began to push forward plans to demolish the racetrack facilities to make way for the open-air mall.

Officials with the city declined to comment Thursday on the status of the mall, and representatives with Irwindale Outlet Partners could not be reached.

Declining attendance

David Carter, a professor of sports business at the USC Marshall School of Business, said large venues that play host to sporting events have seen declining attendance over the years.

“It’s not limited to speedways,” he said. “You have to understand that speedways that do car racing and horse racing have been struggling for some time. They’ve seen declining revenues. And when others look at the best use for those facilities that will drive revenue, it’s almost always retail development.”

Carter said larger well known venues like the Churchill Downs racetrack in Louisville, Kentucky, and the Daytona International Speedway in Florida will survive because of their marquee status.

“That helps them attract enough other kinds of events throughout the course of the year, whether it’s a corporate hospitality function or a concert event,” he said. “They can make it work by adding these other events because those kinds of tracks are destination spots.”

Santa Anita’s challenges

Santa Anita Park in Arcadia has grappled with its own set of challenges, including declining attendance and a shortage of horses to fill out its race cards. Santa Anita runs 150 days of horse racing a year, but the park also books about 180 additional events each year that help pad its bottom line.

Those include wedding ceremonies and receptions, concerts in the infield, filming for TV commercials, high school proms, birthday, anniversary and bar mitzvah events, and 626 Night Market, which consists of four three-day weekend events in the summer. Those drew a total 330,000 people last year.

Irwindale Speedway spokesman Doug Stokes said attendance there “has stayed pretty fair, but it could be better.”

Still, some nights the place is packed.

“This is a 6,000-seat stadium but when we have an event like the Formula Drift, we’ll get 10,000 people,” he said. “We have to bring in extra chairs for them. We have at least 40 events still scheduled, including drag racing, Saturday Night Under the Lights Back to School Night, NHRA Thursday Night Thunder and Thursday Night Drift.”

Speedway history

Stokes said Irwindale Speedway has a lot of history.

“It’s sad,” he said. “You have so many people who love this place and there are a lot of well known drivers who got their start here. We started in 1999 and both of the Busch brothers (Kyle and Kurt) raced Legend Cars here.”

The site, bordered by the San Gabriel Valley Freeway and Live Oak Avenue, has changed uses several times since the 1960s, when it was a quarry, mined for sand and gravel by Pacific Rock.

When the mining operation ended in the mid 1970s, it was converted into a 200-foot deep landfill handling mainly construction waste for nearly 20 years. It later became home to speedway.