For months, commercial real estate agent Matt Crabbs had seen almost no interest in his listing for a vacant retail building on La Brea Avenue in Inglewood.
Then suddenly everything changed. In just the last week, he said about six parties have expressed a desire to buy the roughly 17,000-square-foot building, which is listed at nearly $4 million.
"People are sharpening their pencils and seeing what they can do there," he said. "It's incredible."
The announcement last week that the St. Louis football team would relocate to Inglewood has sparked investor interest in commercial real estate surrounding its future home at the old Hollywood Park racetrack, according to Crabbs and other agents.
Located off Century Boulevard and Prairie Avenue, the project is roughly two miles from the city's downtown and four miles from Los Angeles International Airport.
But how much impact the stadium complex will have on Inglewood is unclear.
Economists generally agree that sports stadium projects do little, if anything, to boost a region's economy. That's largely because the money people spend on game day simply would have been spent elsewhere.
Raphael Bostic, a professor of governance and public policy at USC, said the ability of the developer to make the project a year-round draw is a key.
"There is a potential to succeed," he said. "Time will tell."