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
| Oct 13, 2010
Modern office design accentuates skyline views
Intercontinental|Exchange, a Chicago-based financial firm, hired design/engineering firm Epstein to create a modern, new 31st-floor headquarters.
| Oct 13, 2010
Hospital and clinic join for better patient care
Designed by HGA Architects and Engineers, the two-story Owatonna (Minn.) Hospital, owned by Allina Hospitals and Clinics, connects to a newly expanded clinic owned by Mayo Health System to create a single facility for inpatient and outpatient care.
| Oct 13, 2010
Biloxi’s convention center bigger, better after Katrina
The Mississippi Coast Coliseum and Convention Center in Biloxi is once again open for business following a renovation and expansion necessitated by Hurricane Katrina.
| Oct 13, 2010
Tower commemorates Lewis & Clark’s historic expedition
The $4.8 million Lewis and Clark Confluence Tower in Hartford, Ill., commemorates explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark at the point where their trek to the Pacific Ocean began—the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers.
| Oct 13, 2010
Maryland replacement hospital expands care, changes name
The new $120 million Meritus Regional Medical Center in Hagerstown, Md., has 267 beds, 17 operating rooms with high-resolution video screens, a special care level II nursery, and an emergency room with 53 treatment rooms, two trauma rooms, and two cardiac rooms.
| Oct 13, 2010
Campus building gives students a taste of the business world
William R. Hough Hall is the new home of the Warrington College of Business Administration at the University of Florida in Gainesville. The $17.6 million, 70,000-sf building gives students access to the latest technology, including a lab that simulates the stock exchange.
| Oct 13, 2010
Science building supports enrollment increases
The new Kluge-Moses Science Building at Piedmont Virginia Community College, in Charlottesville, is part of a campus update designed and managed by the Lukmire Partnership. The 34,000-sf building is designed to be both a focal point of the college and a recruitment mechanism to get more students enrolling in healthcare programs.
| Oct 13, 2010
Cancer hospital plans fifth treatment center
Construction is set to start in December on the new Cancer Treatment Centers of America’s $55 million hospital in Newnan, Ga. The 225,000-sf facility will have 25 universal inpatient beds, two linear accelerator vaults, an HDR/Brachy therapy vault, and a radiology and imaging unit.
| Oct 13, 2010
Apartment complex will offer affordable green housing
Urban Housing Communities, KTGY Group, and the City of Big Bear Lake (Calif.) Improvement Agency are collaborating on The Crossings at Big Bear Lake, the first apartment complex in the city to offer residents affordable, eco-friendly homes. KTGY designed 28 two-bedroom, two-story townhomes and 14 three-bedroom, single-story flats, averaging 1,100 sf each.
| Oct 13, 2010
Residences bring students, faculty together in the Middle East
A new residence complex is in design for United Arab Emirates University in Al Ain, UAE, near Abu Dhabi. Plans for the 120-acre mixed-use development include 710 clustered townhomes and apartments for students and faculty and common areas for community activities.
