Super Bowl LVI finds Inglewood in the midst of a boom – Orange County Register

As Inglewood takes on Sunday on the world stage for Super Bowl LVI, City of Champions is still a work in progress.

Visitors will arrive at a town in definite transition, with the $5 billion SoFi Stadium – the crown jewel of the National Football League – backed by cranes, scaffolding and other structures. the building is completed. New hotels, restaurants and other amenities are not expected to make the big day largely due to unforeseen delays caused by the pandemic, bad weather and economic turmoil in recent years .

But the stage was set for an entirely different experience a year later when national attention turned again to Inglewood for the 2023 College Football National Championship game.

At the time, Hollywood Park, the nearly 300-acre property that surrounds the stadium, was slated to feature 314 new residences, a 300-room hotel and 320,000 square feet of retail space. Announced tenants include luxury theater Cinépolis, Three Weavers Brewing Company, Sky’s Gourmet Tacos, a second location for the Residency Art Gallery and Antojitos Martin juice bar.

Last June, the developers advertised that “city within a city” was half done. By 2025, Hollywood Park will have another 2,000 apartments, up to 890,000 square feet of retail space, a six-acre man-made lake, and 25 acres of parks and public squares, according to its website.

Just south of Hollywood Park, work is already underway on the 18,000-seat Intuit Dome, the future home of the Los Angeles Clippers, which will feature retail spaces, training facilities and a hotel 5-star adjacent luxury, complete with helipad. The arena is scheduled to open in the 2024 season.

Lack of accommodation

Construction delays in Inglewood were perhaps most felt when looking for a place to stay for Super Bowl LVI. While some hosts on Airbnb are planning earn thousands every night From lease, only one new hotel near the stadium – the Sonder LÜM, designed and renovated by the Shomof Group – will be ready to host guests, the online listing shows.

Hotel analytics firm STR estimates Los Angeles County hotels will hit an average daily rate of $445, the second-highest of any Super Bowl weekend on record, according to a press release. from the STR, but most of that probably won’t be in Inglewood, which has only a handful of motels.

By the time Inglewood hosts the opening ceremony of the Olympics in 2028, that’s not going to happen.

According to the city, a 300-room luxury hotel and resort located within the boundaries of Hollywood Park is expected to open by the end of 2022.

A few blocks away, construction delays left the 120-room Hilton Tru Hotel, which was originally slated to begin construction in 2020 but has now been pushed back to 2023, a spokeswoman for the company said. city ​​said. Further on, a proposed hotel next to the basketball court in the future will have 300 rooms, 14 floors, an outdoor garden, a rooftop pool and private entertainment venue. It still doesn’t have a completion date, but city officials say it’s still being negotiated and could be at least two or three years away.

Residential projects underway

Several residential projects are also under construction, including luxury apartments at Hollywood Park. The 314 apartments slated for completion this year will feature amenities such as landscaped pools and spa terraces, roof decks, gyms and “work-from-home nooks”.

Grace Park, a project of 226 townhouses on Prairie Avenue, is entering its final stages and has sold most of the homes, according to the city.

An apartment complex of 116 units at 417 Centinela Ave. Recently completed and changed hands.

Other projects expected to be completed over the next two years include a 6-storey penthouse, 114 units on North La Brea Avenue, a 311-unit mixed-use project in South La Brea and a building 65-unit mix on Hillcrest Avenue, according to TP.

If all goes according to plan, Inglewood hopes to have close to 1 billion USD Everyone Mover just in time for the Olympics will connect The Forum, SoFi/Hollywood Park and Intuit Dome to the Crenshaw/LAX Underground Line.

Despite delays elsewhere, Inglewood has also experienced a series of large-scale reopenings in recent months.

The project had finished

Google brand YouTube Theater, described as an intimate venue next to the stadium with a capacity of up to 6,000 guests, opened in August. It will host Eddie Vedder, Jack White, Tiny Fey and Amy Poehler, and Louis Tomlinson this year.

The following month, NFL Media moved its staff to a new 400,000 square foot headquarters in Hollywood Park. Then, in October, the Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles revealed a figure of $14.5 million Judith and Thomas L. Beckmen YOLA Center, a new home for young musicians. The YOLA Center, designed by renowned architect Frank Gehry, has revived a former dilapidated bank building on La Brea Avenue.

In a statement, Inglewood Mayor James T. Butts Jr said economic development in Inglewood “is only important because it has provided wealth to generations of our residents and provided the money we owe them to. I can invest in my children.”

Since the stadium broke ground in 2016, home values ​​have nearly doubled, according to estimates by online real estate site Zillow. Some residents argue that increased demand is driving them out of their homes, which has prompted Inglewood City Council to put a cap on rent increases. But Butts was clear that landlords benefit.

“The real progress that has happened has been for the residents — for our children both socially and culturally,” Butts said. “More than 200 young Inglewoods will be mentored by the LA Philharmonic Youth Orchestra program – by the best orchestral musicians in the world. And thousands more Inglewood residents are employed than in previous years.”