#nflinla

[apoplife]

Rams Practice #NFLinLA (at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and Sports Arena)

[neontommysports]

Inglewood City Council Approves NFL Stadium

During a late-night city council meeting Tuesday night, the Inglewood City Council voted for bypassing voter participation and concurrently approving the addition of an NFL Stadium to the Hollywood Park project. 

Headlined by Mayor James Butts Jr., the council heard opinions from 50 different residents, according to the LA Times, most of which where in complete support of the stadium addition. 

By a unanimous vote, the approval means construction can begin on the site acquired by business billionaire and owner of the St. Louis Rams, Stan Kroenke, as soon as December of this year, placing the project on a fast-track to be opened and used in 2018.

Now, the project as a whole is not the sole stadium, but rather a 283-acre plot of land that will be a commercial conception in every sense of the word. From a shopping center, to possible apartments and many other amenities, the stadium approval is the latest shoe to drop in the path toward completion. 

The stadium itself is said to have the precipitous price tag of $1.86 billion, a number that would make it the most expensive stadium in NFL history, according to the Times. 

As it has come to be the case with these NFL-to-LA rumors, this new sequence of events by no means assures that Kroenke's St. Louis Rams will be LA-bound in the near-future or the stadium itself in the distant one. 

The Rams are still weighing their options to stay in St. Louis, amidst a revitalized effort by the city to build a new stadium, and thus, retain them.

But because the Inglewood site is seen as a commercial area containing an NFL stadium, and not just an NFL stadium by its lonesome, the construction of the surrounding parts can and will be the first underway regardless. 

In light of the recent conjoined Carson development by the Raiders and Chargers, the hasty manner by which the voting process was bypassed and approved, this puts Kroenke back in the lead of the SoCal stadium race. 

While this is only another step toward a hopeful materialization of a longtime dream for Angelenos everywhere, it also has the potential to be yet another unfulfilled tease that renders no tenants or suitors in the end.

The play for leverage in order to build a new St. Louis stadium is still a probable reality, but because Kroenke—an NFL owner— has attached his name and business to this proposal in Inglewood things are, and feel, different. 

No longer is financing the worry, no longer is location the issue. No longer is an inexistent team the problem and as shown by Tuesday night's council meeting, no longer is public persistence a hurdle. However, there's still this:

There is a long way to go, but the necessary checkpoints are being passed with flying colors, and the dream of football in Los Angeles seems to be all but headed toward fulfillment. 

Yet the road being traveled still feels awfully familiar and many are wary of what they may or rather may not find at the end of it. The reality is that until a football is kicked off in Inglewood, no vote, approval or decision can grant enough assurance. 

By Associate Editor Paolo Uggetti. Follow him here. 

[dannyoliva]

Updated renderings for Farmers Field released on Nov 15, 2011