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In his long-running poker game over the Rams’ future in St. Louis, team owner Stan Kroenke just laid down a new card.
A holding company tied to the billionaire developer bought a football stadium-sized piece of ground in Los Angeles this month, according to sources familiar with the deal.
The 60-acre site, home to a planned but never built Walmart in Inglewood, has long been seen as a potential home for a would-be NFL team in Los Angeles. Now it’s in the hands of a man who owns a team.
Whether Kroenke plans to move the Rams there, use the site as leverage in his negotiations over improvements to the Edward Jones Dome, turn it into a retail development or simply flip it to a new owner is unclear.
Kroenke, who builds Walmart-anchored shopping centers across the country and sat on the company board for five years, could not be reached for comment.
But with the entire pro football world gathered in New York for Sunday’s Super Bowl, the news adds at least a little pressure to state and local officials in St. Louis who are working to keep Kroenke’s Rams here.
A clause in the team’s contract with the Dome requires it be a “first-tier” stadium — in the top eight of 32 NFL stadiums — by 2015. If it’s not, the franchise would be free to leave St. Louis, or go on a year-to-year lease, by this time next year.
The Rams and local officials have been talking about improvements since 2012, but they have made little headway so far. A team proposal that local leaders said would cost at least $700 million was rejected last year, and since then, Gov. Jay Nixon has been taking a lead role in the negotiations.
Hanging over those talks from the start has been the prospect of Los Angeles.
The nation’s second-largest metro area — and the Rams’ former home — has no NFL team, and efforts to bring one there have run off and on for years. More than one team has used the prospect of heading to Hollywood to leverage public subsidies for a new stadium in its hometown. But many experts also say a successful franchise there could be hugely profitable.
One of the sites that has long been batted about for a potential L.A. stadium, including in the early 1990s by Raiders owner Al Davis, is the Hollywood Park Racetrack in Inglewood, a working-class area between Los Angeles International Airport and downtown. The racetrack itself closed in December, and owners of the 260-acre site are planning a massive housing and retail development there, which is set to break ground next month.
But just north of Hollywood Park, and across the street from the newly renovated L.A. Forum, where the Lakers used to play, is a parking lot that Wal-Mart Stores Inc. bought in 2004, with plans to build a SuperCenter. Those plans were thwarted after Inglewood voters rejected a ballot initiative that would have allowed the store, and the site has sat empty ever since.
City officials in Inglewood have heard stadium rumors for years. Mayor James Butts said three teams have shown interest in the site, which he calls “the best in Southern California.”
“That being said, there’s no deal I know of that’s been consummated to secure sufficient land,” he said.
Still, on Jan. 13, Wal-Mart sold the 60-acre site to a New York-based holding company. The only name on the buyer’s side of the deed was John Ford, a lawyer at Clifford Chance, the same firm that advised Kroenke when he bought the English Premier League soccer team Arsenal.
Ford did not return messages seeking comment. Public documents did not list a price.
Richard Kinnard, a vice president in charge of selling unwanted real estate for Wal-Mart, wouldn’t say if Kroenke was personally involved in the deal. But Kinnard did say that pro sports owners had asked about the site before, usually seeking an option to purchase it after all the approvals were lined up. This time, the buyer was ready to close now.
“We sell to people who are going to develop,” he said.
OTHER HURDLES AWAIT
While Kroenke’s intentions for the land are unclear, the 60-acre site would appear to be large enough for a stadium. Extra parking could be available across the street at the 17,500-seat Forum, and in new development just south. The San Francisco 49ers’ new stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., for instance, sits on 40 acres. The Lucas Oil Stadium site in Indianapolis is about the same size.
But owning a big piece of ground is just the first of many steps Kroenke would need to take to move the Rams to Los Angeles.
He’d still need to cobble together permits, financing, construction firms and the NFL’s holy grail — enough parking to allow for the kind of tailgating fans love. All that can take years, as new stadiums in the Bay Area, Minneapolis and elsewhere have shown.
And Kroenke would have league hurdles too.
Before any NFL team moves to a new city, its owners must file a transfer application with the league. They must prove they’ve exhausted other stadium options in their hometowns. They’d need to line up a temporary home while the new stadium gets built. And they must get the blessing of three-fourths of NFL owners, which based on past deals would likely require a nine-figure relocation fee.
Moreover, while the NFL will help with up to $200 million in stadium financing, that requires an application as well.
NFL Vice President Greg Aiello said no such application has been filed.
The many moves yet to be made had St. Louis officials taking a wait-and-see approach.
“I haven’t heard about this yet,” Jeff Rainford, chief of staff to Mayor Francis Slay said Thursday. “But on its face, by itself, it doesn’t concern me.”
When asked how buying land in L.A. might affect negotiations in St. Louis, Rainford referred comment to Gov. Jay Nixon, whose office has taken over talks with the Rams. A Nixon spokesman said the governor’s office would have no comment.
But Jim Shrewsbury, chairman of the board of the Dome Authority, which owns the St. Louis stadium, warned against reading too much into a simple real estate deal two time zones away.
“You have to be careful how you interpret things (Kroenke) does. He has a variety of interests, so he could be doing a variety of things,” Shrewsbury said. “He hasn’t said what he’s going to do with it, has he?”
In his long-running poker game over the Rams’ future in St. Louis, team owner Stan Kroenke just laid down a new card.
A holding company tied to the billionaire developer bought a football stadium-sized piece of ground in Los Angeles this month, according to sources familiar with the deal.
The 60-acre site, home to a planned but never built Walmart in Inglewood, has long been seen as a potential home for a would-be NFL team in Los Angeles. Now it’s in the hands of a man who owns a team.
Whether Kroenke plans to move the Rams there, use the site as leverage in his negotiations over improvements to the Edward Jones Dome, turn it into a retail development or simply flip it to a new owner is unclear.
Kroenke, who builds Walmart-anchored shopping centers across the country and sat on the company board for five years, could not be reached for comment.
But with the entire pro football world gathered in New York for Sunday’s Super Bowl, the news adds at least a little pressure to state and local officials in St. Louis who are working to keep Kroenke’s Rams here.
A clause in the team’s contract with the Dome requires it be a “first-tier” stadium — in the top eight of 32 NFL stadiums — by 2015. If it’s not, the franchise would be free to leave St. Louis, or go on a year-to-year lease, by this time next year.
The Rams and local officials have been talking about improvements since 2012, but they have made little headway so far. A team proposal that local leaders said would cost at least $700 million was rejected last year, and since then, Gov. Jay Nixon has been taking a lead role in the negotiations.
Hanging over those talks from the start has been the prospect of Los Angeles.
The nation’s second-largest metro area — and the Rams’ former home — has no NFL team, and efforts to bring one there have run off and on for years. More than one team has used the prospect of heading to Hollywood to leverage public subsidies for a new stadium in its hometown. But many experts also say a successful franchise there could be hugely profitable.
One of the sites that has long been batted about for a potential L.A. stadium, including in the early 1990s by Raiders owner Al Davis, is the Hollywood Park Racetrack in Inglewood, a working-class area between Los Angeles International Airport and downtown. The racetrack itself closed in December, and owners of the 260-acre site are planning a massive housing and retail development there, which is set to break ground next month.
But just north of Hollywood Park, and across the street from the newly renovated L.A. Forum, where the Lakers used to play, is a parking lot that Wal-Mart Stores Inc. bought in 2004, with plans to build a SuperCenter. Those plans were thwarted after Inglewood voters rejected a ballot initiative that would have allowed the store, and the site has sat empty ever since.
City officials in Inglewood have heard stadium rumors for years. Mayor James Butts said three teams have shown interest in the site, which he calls “the best in Southern California.”
“That being said, there’s no deal I know of that’s been consummated to secure sufficient land,” he said.
Still, on Jan. 13, Wal-Mart sold the 60-acre site to a New York-based holding company. The only name on the buyer’s side of the deed was John Ford, a lawyer at Clifford Chance, the same firm that advised Kroenke when he bought the English Premier League soccer team Arsenal.
Ford did not return messages seeking comment. Public documents did not list a price.
Richard Kinnard, a vice president in charge of selling unwanted real estate for Wal-Mart, wouldn’t say if Kroenke was personally involved in the deal. But Kinnard did say that pro sports owners had asked about the site before, usually seeking an option to purchase it after all the approvals were lined up. This time, the buyer was ready to close now.
“We sell to people who are going to develop,” he said.
OTHER HURDLES AWAIT
While Kroenke’s intentions for the land are unclear, the 60-acre site would appear to be large enough for a stadium. Extra parking could be available across the street at the 17,500-seat Forum, and in new development just south. The San Francisco 49ers’ new stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., for instance, sits on 40 acres. The Lucas Oil Stadium site in Indianapolis is about the same size.
But owning a big piece of ground is just the first of many steps Kroenke would need to take to move the Rams to Los Angeles.
He’d still need to cobble together permits, financing, construction firms and the NFL’s holy grail — enough parking to allow for the kind of tailgating fans love. All that can take years, as new stadiums in the Bay Area, Minneapolis and elsewhere have shown.
And Kroenke would have league hurdles too.
Before any NFL team moves to a new city, its owners must file a transfer application with the league. They must prove they’ve exhausted other stadium options in their hometowns. They’d need to line up a temporary home while the new stadium gets built. And they must get the blessing of three-fourths of NFL owners, which based on past deals would likely require a nine-figure relocation fee.
Moreover, while the NFL will help with up to $200 million in stadium financing, that requires an application as well.
NFL Vice President Greg Aiello said no such application has been filed.
The many moves yet to be made had St. Louis officials taking a wait-and-see approach.
“I haven’t heard about this yet,” Jeff Rainford, chief of staff to Mayor Francis Slay said Thursday. “But on its face, by itself, it doesn’t concern me.”
When asked how buying land in L.A. might affect negotiations in St. Louis, Rainford referred comment to Gov. Jay Nixon, whose office has taken over talks with the Rams. A Nixon spokesman said the governor’s office would have no comment.
But Jim Shrewsbury, chairman of the board of the Dome Authority, which owns the St. Louis stadium, warned against reading too much into a simple real estate deal two time zones away.
“You have to be careful how you interpret things (Kroenke) does. He has a variety of interests, so he could be doing a variety of things,” Shrewsbury said. “He hasn’t said what he’s going to do with it, has he?”
