Inglewood mayor: Near-$3B Rams stadium to add 22K new construction jobs

Dive Brief:

The Rams are moving back to California and building, with a local hiring goal of 30% in place, a nearly $3 billion stadium complex that is projected to bring 22,000 construction jobs to the Los Angeles-area city of Inglewood over the next six to seven years, The Los Angeles Times reported. The stadium and ancillary developments are also expected to create 12,000 full- and part-time jobs.
In addition to a glass-roofed stadium, the complex will also feature retail spaces and a hotel. Rams owner Stan Kroenke said he also plans to develop an entertainment district around the venue.
Inglewood Mayor James T. Butts said Inglewood should receive $13 million to $14 million in sale taxes revenue from material used during construction. Once the football games begin, Butts told the Times, the city should collect $16 million to $20 million in revenue from the stadium, as well as from commercial and housing development.

Dive Insight:

The stadium comes at a critical time for Inglewood, which was on the verge of bankruptcy five years ago, according to the Times. The city was forced to lay off 140 employees, renegotiate several labor agreements and even outsource some city services.

While most businesses surrounding the future stadium’s site are excited about the opportunities that will come once construction begins on the venue, some Inglewood residents are adopting a wait-and-see attitude, the Times reported.

"It takes more than a stadium that everybody is driving to from somewhere else to revitalize an economy," Chris Tilly, director of the UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, told the Times. "This will put Inglewood on the map in the loosest sense of the word. One project, even a project that will end up in the sports pages, is not going to cut it."

The NFL voted earlier this week to allow the Rams to relocate back to Los Angeles. However, in the run up to the owners’ vote, Kroenke announced he was building a stadium in Inglewood no matter what the NFL decided.

The NFL’s decision is a major blow to St. Louis, which approved a financing plan for a new, $1.1 billion stadium in December in an effort to persuade the Rams to stay. The plan’s minority participation provisions were considered "transformative" to local activists. The city even rallied the unions toward an agreement to work around the clock in three eight-hour shifts to eliminate overtime costs on the stadium construction.