“For the past few years, it has sort of been a parlor game in L.A. real estate,” said Jenny Schuetz, a real estate professor at the University of Southern California. “Are we finally going to get an NFL team? And where?”
There are at least four other L.A. sites that have been proposed for a new stadium.
The most prominent — it has already sold naming rights — is Farmers Field, a $1.2 billion plan by sports and entertainment company AEG to put a new stadium downtown, next to the L.A. Convention Center. The project has the backing of City Hall and was fast-tracked by California Gov. Jerry Brown in 2011. But relations between AEG and the NFL have been rocky, and project developers have been quiet in recent months.
Another big development group wants to put a stadium on 600 acres in City of Industry, 25 miles east of downtown L.A. But financing has been a challenge there, and the development has been dormant for a year. Other sites, including Dodger Stadium and an industrial stretch in the city of Carson, are in the mix too, but are seen as more speculative.
The people behind any of those sites could make life complicated for Kroenke, especially the groups working on downtown and the City of Industry, who have already spent considerable time and money on their efforts, Schuetz said.
“They’ve both been proposed by really heavy hitters who have a lot of political clout,” Schuetz said. “That’s going to be a big factor in this.”