LOS ANGELES (AP) — Los Angeles is poised to take a major step toward constructing a stadium
to entice an NFL team back to the nation's second most populous city,
even as a court fight looms and the company that wants to build it shops
for a new owner.
The City Council is scheduled to vote Friday on a complex deal
with Anschutz Entertainment Group to build the 72,000-seat venue in the
shadow of downtown's skyscrapers, near a tangle of freeways notorious
for traffic snarls.
The biggest question about the stadium
is the most obvious: there's no one to play in it. But Mayor Antonio
Villaraigosa and other supporters hope the agreement with AEG will
eventually attract a team to one of the nation's most lucrative media
markets, where fans have pined for the return of professional football
since the Raiders and Rams fled Southern California in 1994.
The
vote on the development package comes less than two weeks after AEG,
also the owner of Los Angeles' Staples Center arena and the NHL's Los
Angeles Kings, went up for sale. A deal to buy
the company, a subsidiary of Denver-based Anschutz Co., would mean a
major shift in sports and entertainment in the region and around the
world, while raising questions about the future of the stadium plan.
However,
the Democratic mayor has said Denver billionaire Phillip Anschutz and
AEG President Tim Leiweke have assured him the city's football future
will remain the same, even if the company changes hands.
AEG's
holdings include pro soccer's Los Angeles Galaxy, part-ownership of the
NBA's Los Angeles Lakers, and major entertainment and real estate
holdings in downtown Los Angeles. Outside of L.A.,
AEG owns Major League Soccer's Houston Dynamo and all or part of
several arenas around the U.S. and in Sweden, China and Australia.
The
$1.5 billion project, which also calls for renovation of an adjacent
convention center, is facing a lawsuit filed by anti-poverty and
environmental activists that some predict could delay or derail plans
for the stadium, known as Farmers Field. The
activist group, Play Fair at Farmers Field Coalition, is challenging a
state law intended to help swiftly resolve legal challenges to the stadium, and it also wants AEG to pay $60 million toward affordable housing in the long-struggling downtown neighborhood.
A rival group, Majestic Realty, has proposed building a stadium in the City of Industry, outside Los Angeles.
AEG
is hoping to have an NFL team on the field by the 2017 season. The
company has pledged about $35 million to reduce traffic problems.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.
