An investment group controlled by the owner of the St. Louis Rams NFL team has joined forces with Stockbridge Capital Group, which owns the 298-acre Hollywood Park site in Inglewood, Calif., to add an 80,000-seat football stadium and 6,000-seat performance arena to a massive mixed-use development Stockbridge already has in the works, according to the Los Angeles Times and other news reports.
A year ago, Kroenke Group purchased 60 acres of land adjacent to the Forum arena in Inglewood. With its deal with Stockbridge, Kroenke Group’s owner, billionaire real estate developer Stan Kroenke, becomes the first existing NFL owner to control enough land in the Los Angeles market to accommodate a football stadium and parking since the Rams left L.A. for St. Louis after the 1994 season.
For decades, team owners in other cities have used the threat of relocating to Los Angeles as leverage for negotiating improvements to their own stadiums from local municipalities or states. And Kroenke has expressed displeasure with the conditions of Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis, where the Rams currently play.
The Times reports that next month the Rams can opt out of its 30-year lease in St. Louis 10 years early and convert it to a year-to-year arrangement. But the earliest the Rams could relocate to Los Angeles would be 2016.
No tax dollars would be used to build the Hollywood Park development, including the stadium. The investors are already gathering signatures to put the project onto the city’s municipal ballot this year. Inglewood’s Mayor James Butts, Jr. is on record supporting this project, which the investors have dubbed the City of Champions Revitalization Project.
The developer Wilson Meany, with offices in L.A. and San Francisco, is heading up this development, which, if approved, could be completed by 2018. HKS Architects is also involved in this project.
Kroenke and Stockbridge’s proposal is competing with at least two other plans for new stadiums in or around L.A. The entertainment giant AEG, which owns this city’s professional hockey and soccer teams, wants to build a $1.5 billion football stadium in downtown L.A., called Farmers Field, along with a new wing for the city’s nearby convention center. Another real estate magnate, Ed Roski, has had a stadium plan for City of Industry, Calif., on the table for several years. However, neither of these competing plans has mustered a commitment from an NFL team to relocate.
The Hollywood Park project would include more than 4 million sf of retail, office, and residential space, and 25 acres of parks. But to move forward, the Rams would have to commit to moving, and the project would need to get past any political or environmental opposition.
Related Stories
| Nov 29, 2010
Data Centers: Keeping Energy, Security in Check
Power consumption for data centers doubled from 2000 and 2006, and it is anticipated to double again by 2011, making these mission-critical facilities the nation’s largest commercial user of electric power. Major technology companies, notably Hewlett-Packard, Cisco Systems, and International Business Machines, are investing heavily in new data centers. HP, which acquired technology services provider EDS in 2008, announced in June that it would be closing many of its older data centers and would be building new, more highly optimized centers around the world.
| Nov 29, 2010
New Design Concepts for Elementary and Secondary Schools
Hard hit by the economy, new construction in the K-12 sector has slowed considerably over the past year. Yet innovation has continued, along with renovations and expansions. Today, Building Teams are showing a keener focus on sustainable design, as well as ways to improve indoor environmental quality (IEQ), daylighting, and low-maintenance finishes such as flooring.
| Nov 29, 2010
Renovating for Sustainability
Motivated by the prospect of increased property values, reduced utility bills, and an interest in jumping on the sustainability bandwagon, a noted upturn in green building upgrades is helping designers and real estate developers stay busy while waiting for the economy to recover. In fact, many of the larger property management outfits have set up teams to undertake projects seeking LEED for Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance (LEED-EBOM, also referred to as LEED-EB), a certification by the U.S. Green Building Council.
| Nov 23, 2010
The George W. Bush Presidential Center, which will house the former president’s library
The George W. Bush Presidential Center, which will house the former president’s library and museum, plus the Bush Institute, is aiming for LEED Platinum. The 226,565-sf center, located at Southern Methodist University, in Dallas, was designed by architect Robert A.M. Stern and landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh.
| Nov 23, 2010
Honeywell's School Energy and Environment Survey: 68% of districts delayed or eliminated improvements because of economy
Results of Honeywell's second annual “School Energy and Environment Survey” reveal that almost 90% of school leaders see a direct link between the quality and performance of school facilities, and student achievement. However, districts face several obstacles when it comes to keeping their buildings up to date and well maintained. For example, 68% of school districts have either delayed or eliminated building improvements in response to the economic downturn.
| Nov 16, 2010
Architecture Billings Index: inquiries for new projects remain extremely high
The new projects inquiry index was 61.7, down slightly from a nearly three-year high mark of 62.3 in September, according to the Architecture Billings Index (ABI). However, the ABI dropped nearly two points in October; the October ABI score was 48.7, down from a reading of 50.4 the previous month. The ABI reflects the approximate nine to 12 month lag time between architecture billings and construction spending.
| Nov 16, 2010
Brazil Olympics spurring green construction
Brazil's green building industry will expand in the coming years, spurred by construction of low-impact venues being built for the 2016 Olympics. The International Olympic Committee requires arenas built for the 2016 games in Rio de Janeiro meet international standards for low-carbon emissions and energy efficiency. This has boosted local interest in developing real estate with lower environmental impact than existing buildings. The timing couldn’t be better: the Brazilian government is just beginning its long-term infrastructure expansion program.
| Nov 16, 2010
Green building market grows 50% in two years; Green Outlook 2011 report
The U.S. green building market is up 50% from 2008 to 2010—from $42 billion to $55 billion-$71 billion, according to McGraw-Hill Construction's Green Outlook 2011: Green Trends Driving Growth report. Today, a third of all new nonresidential construction is green; in five years, nonresidential green building activity is expected to triple, representing $120 billion to $145 billion in new construction.
| Nov 16, 2010
Calculating office building performance? Yep, there’s an app for that
123 Zero build is a free tool for calculating the performance of a market-ready carbon-neutral office building design. The app estimates the discounted payback for constructing a zero emissions office building in any U.S. location, including the investment needed for photovoltaics to offset annual carbon emissions, payback calculations, estimated first costs for a highly energy efficient building, photovoltaic costs, discount rates, and user-specified fuel escalation rates.