Downtown Stadium Proponents, LA Reach Tentative Deal

A proposal for a football stadium in downtown Los Angeles got a boost Tuesday after city officials released the draft of a memorandum of understanding agreement that would give Anschutz Entertainment Group the go ahead to build a $1 billion NFL football stadium.

The proposed agreement, which comes after three months of negotiations between city officials and AEG,  also includes the approval to renovate the Convention Center hall on city-owned property downtown.

The draft MOU release comes just one month after 11th District Councilman Bill Rosendahl to allow neighborhood council representatives to pose questions to AEG representatives.

Last week, , "If the convention center goes forward [Los Angeles] will go from being the 15th largest convention center to number 5. To me that's the most compelling part of moving forward with the project."

AEG still must go through the environmental impact report process, which officials expect to complete in about a year. The proposed agreement calls for that process to be completed before Los Angeles would give the project a green light, said Los Angeles City Councilwoman Jan Perry, who chairs the ad hoc committee tasked with reviewing the stadium proposal.

The memorandum of understanding is a 55-year, $6.5 million lease for the land under the existing West Hall of the Los Angeles Convention Center to build a stadium and parking structure. 

The agreement, which would require an NFL team to be on board before moving forward, also outlines a financing plan for AEG to construct a convention center hall.  Under the agreement, the city would be required to make two tax-exempt bond issues for $275 million to pay for the construction of a new convention hall. 

AEG would repay three-quarters of the bonds directly and the rest would come from tax revenues the stadium generates.  The plan is designed to keep taxpayers from having to contribute financially to the project. The Los Angeles City Council plans to have a preliminary discussion on the proposal on Friday, but is not expected to vote on the plan.

"This is our opportunity to create a strong foundation on which to
build a project that is good for the city," Perry said. "It is just one piece of a much larger puzzle."

The public is encouraged to attend Friday's meeting at 10 a.m. at City Hall. Representatives from AEG will be in attendance and will take questions from the public as well as the city council. 

A full copy of the MOU can be seen in the PDF file to the right of this article, and additional documents compiled by Councilman Rosendahl on the AEG stadium project can be found here.

City News Service contributed to this report.

Be sure to follow Mar Vista Patch on Twitter and "Like" us on Facebook.