As Inglewood takes its place on the world stage Sunday for Super Bowl LVI, the City of Champions is very much still a work in progress.
Visitors will arrive to a town visibly in transition, with the $5 billion SoFi Stadium — the crown jewel of the National Football League — backdropped by cranes, scaffolds and half-finished buildings. The new hotels, restaurants and other amenities slated for the area won’t make the big day largely due to unforeseen delays brought on by the pandemic, bad weather and economic uncertainty in recent years.
But the stage is set for a radically different experience a year later when the national spotlight is cast upon Inglewood again for the 2023 College Football National Championship game.
By then, Hollywood Park, the nearly 300 acres encompassing the stadium, is expected to have 314 new residences, a 300-room hotel and 320,000 square feet of retail space. The announced tenants include luxury theater Cinépolis, Three Weavers Brewing Company, Sky’s Gourmet Tacos, a second location for the Residency Art Gallery and juice bar Antojitos Martin.
Last June, the developers touted that the “city within a city” was halfway to completion. By 2025, Hollywood Park will have another 2,000 residences, up to 890,000 square feet of retail space, a 6-acre artificial lake and 25 acres of public parks and plazas, according to its website.
Just south of Hollywood Park, work already is underway on the 18,000-seat Intuit Dome, the future home of the Los Angeles Clippers, which will feature its own retail spaces, training facilities and an adjacent five-star luxury hotel, complete with a helipad. The arena is slated to open in time for the 2024 season.
Lack of lodging
The delays in construction in Inglewood are perhaps felt most when looking for a place to stay for Super Bowl LVI. While some hosts on Airbnb are planning to make thousands per night from rentals, only one new hotel near the stadium — the Sonder LÜM, designed and renovated by the Shomof Group — will be ready to take guests, online listings showed.
The hospitality analytics firm STR estimates hotels in Los Angeles County will reach an average daily rate of $445, the second highest level of any Super Bowl weekend on record, according to a press release from STR, but most of that activity likely won’t be in Inglewood, where only a few motels are in the vicinity of the venue.
By the time Inglewood hosts the opening ceremonies of the Olympics in 2028, that won’t be the case.
A 300-room boutique hotel and resort within the boundaries of Hollywood Park is expected to open by the end of 2022, according to the city.
A few blocks away, construction delays have stalled the 120-room Hilton Tru Hotel, which originally was slated to begin construction in 2020 but now has been set back to 2023, a city spokesman said. Even further out, a proposed hotel alongside the future basketball arena will have 300 rooms, 14 stories, an outdoor garden, a rooftop pool and its own entertainment venue. It doesn’t have a completion date yet, but city officials say it is still under negotiations and likely at least two or three years away.
Residential projects underway
Several residential projects also are under construction, including the high-end units at Hollywood Park. The 314 units expected to be completed this year will have amenities such as a landscaped pool and spa terrace, roof decks, fitness studios and “work-from-home nooks.”
Grace Park, a development featuring 226 town houses on Prairie Avenue, is entering its last phases and already has sold the majority of the homes, according to the city.
A 116-unit apartment complex at 417 Centinela Ave. was recently finished and changed hands.
Other projects expected to be completed in the next two years include a six-story, 114-unit loft on North La Brea Avenue, a 311-unit mixed-use project on South La Brea and a 65-unit mixed-use property on Hillcrest Boulevard, according to the city.
If all goes to plan, Inglewood hopes to have a nearly $1 billion People Mover in place in time for the Olympics that will connect The Forum, SoFi/Hollywood Park and Intuit Dome to Metro’s Crenshaw/LAX Line.
Though there have been delays elsewhere, Inglewood has experienced a flurry of large-scale openings in recent months, too.
Finished projects
The Google-branded YouTube Theater, described as an intimate venue next to the stadium with seating up for up 6,000 guests, opened its doors in August. It’ll host Eddie Vedder, Jack White, Tiny Fey and Amy Poehler, and Louis Tomlinson this year.
The following month, NFL Media relocated its staff to a new 400,000-square-foot headquarters in Hollywood Park. Then, in October, the Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles unveiled the $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, revitalized a formerly run-down bank building on La Brea Avenue.
In a statement, Inglewood Mayor James T. Butts Jr. said the economic development in Inglewood “only matters because it has given generational wealth to our residents and provided funds we can invest in our children.”
Since the stadium broke ground in 2016, housing values have nearly doubled, according to estimates by the online real estate site Zillow. Some residents have argued that the increased demand is pricing them out of their hometown, which prompted the Inglewood City Council to place a cap on rent increases. But Butts has been clear that homeowners stand to benefit.
“The real progress that has occurred has been for the residents — for our children both socially and culturally,” Butts said. “Over 200 Inglewood youth will be mentored by the LA Philharmonic youth orchestra program — by the finest orchestra musicians in the world. And there are thousands more Inglewood residents employed than there were years ago.”
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