Shelli Weinstein / Variety /
Los Angeles could be moving closer to having a hometown NFL team again after St. Louis Rams owner Stan Kroenke announced plans to build a stadium in Inglewood, the L.A. Times reported Monday.
Kroenke has teamed up with Stockbridge Capital Group to build an 80,000-seat stadium in Inglewood, adjacent to the Forum, on the site of the former Hollywood Park racetrack. The 238-acre site is owned by Stockbridge. Kroenke purchased an additional 60 acres near the site just over a year ago.
In addition to the stadium, the partners plan to build a 6,000-seat performance venue as well as retail, office, hotel and residential pace, according to the Times. The project will be funded with private money, they said, to be completed by 2018. Inglewood Mayor James T. Butts Jr. said he was “extremely supportive” of the initiative to bring the NFL back to Los Angeles.
The return of an NFL team to the city would be the first since 1994, when both the Rams and Oakland Raiders left. Numerous teams have been linked to potential moves to L.A. in recent years, including the Rams and the Raiders, though Kroenke’s announcement hardly makes it a done deal for a football revival in the city.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell announced that the league will only be accepting applications for next season. The announcement of the Inglewood stadium plans gives Kroenke, also the owner of NBA’s Denver Nuggets and English soccer club Arsenal, negotiating power in his current fight with the city of St. Louis over renovations to the Rams’ current home.
Kroenke and Stockbridge hope to gather signatures soon in order to get the project on the Inglewood municipal ballot in 2015.
© 2015 Variety Media, LLC, a subsidiary of Penske Business Media; Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC