More than $1 million was spent lobbying last year on failed legislation that would have fast-tracked construction of a new Clippers arena in Inglewood, according to state lobbying disclosures released this week.
The legislation, Senate Bill 789 from Sen. Steven Bradford (D-Gardena), would have carved out exemptions from the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, for the arena and related projects in Inglewood. CEQA requires developers to disclose and reduce the environmental effects of their projects, and CEQA lawsuits often tie up or kill proposals. The bill originally included similar exemptions benefiting Los Angeles’ 2028 Olympics bid, but organizers balked and Bradford removed the language. To read the entire LATimes.com article click here.
When the Los Angeles Philharmonic revealed grand goals for its celebratory 100th season beginning fall 2018, the orchestra promised an array of unspecified spectacles at Walt Disney Concert Hall, a parade to the Hollywood Bowl, ticket handouts, a new Frank Gehry-designed YOLA Center in Inglewood to serve the L.A. Phil's expanding education efforts for inner city youth, 50 commissions of new music and a $500-million fundraising campaign to pay for it all. To read the entire LATimes.com article click here.
The first time Minneapolis hosted the Super Bowl, in 1992, a solitary sports bar and acres of parking lots surrounding the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome stood in testament to the stadium’s failure to generate private investment in the neighborhood, an area east of downtown.But football fans returning to the city to watch the New England Patriots and Philadelphia Eagles compete in Super Bowl LII on Feb. 4 are not likely to recognize the area, now known as East Town.
The Metrodome, a walled-in colossus that dominated the barren landscape from 1982 to 2014, has been replaced by U.S. Bank Stadium, which opened in 2016. The roughly $1.1 billion bright and transparent edifice, designed by HKS architects, features a mostly clear, steep roof and has been likened to a Nordic long house, a Viking warship and an ice shard formation.
New offices, apartments, hotels, restaurants and a 4.2-acre park known as the Commons have replaced the parking lots. In all, more than $2 billion in private and public investment has been injected into East Town, according to the East Town Business Partnership. . . In addition to other garages and a light rail station in East Town, the downtown Minneapolis Skyway System, an enclosed elevated walkway, was extended to the stadium to ease the demand for parking spaces. To read the entire New York Times article click here.
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is planning to expand beyond its mid-Wilshire campus to create a satellite campus, or possibly two, in South Los Angeles. The City Council has scheduled a vote for Friday on one site, owned by the city, and Michael Govan, the director of Lacma, said he is in “very serious discussions” with county leaders about the other. The goal, he noted, is for the museum, which receives about 25 percent of its financing from the county, to reach what he called “underserved” populations in Los Angeles with exhibitions, after-school programming and other events. To read the entire New York Times article click here.
Hundreds of seniors came out to celebrate the grand opening of the new senior facility in the rapidly developing City of Inglewood, located on the N/E corner of Queen Street and Locust Ave. The seniors had been promised a new facility back in 2005 when the old building was demolished to make way for the new state-of-the- art senior center but construction happened. However, with a new regime of like-minded folks in City Hall, projects and being completed and new center is ready to serve the needs of community’s seniors. To read the entire LASentinel.net article click here.
