INGLEWOOD, Calif. – The city of Inglewood continues to explore land use and design guidelines near the Inglewood Sports and Entertainment District.
The City has enlisted the assistance of Urban Land Institute to assemble a team of experts to assist with evaluating options for the Century Blvd. corridor as it is a major gateway to the City for visitors of the Kia Forum, SoFi Stadium and Intuit Dome.
In January 2022, ULI was awarded a $30,000 no-bid contract to assemble a Technical Assistance Panel (TAP) to provide preliminary recommendations. The agreement was approved on a vote of 3-0 due to Councilmembers Eloy Morales Jr. and George Dotson being absent.
According to the agreement, ULI would “assemble a team of real estate planning, development and finance experts to tour the site, interview stakeholders, formulate recommendations and present its findings to the City”.
The most recent action taken by ULI was a walking tour of Market Street in June that included stops at the Nile Bar and the Miracle Theatre.
The panel consisted of Inglewood Mayor James T. Butts Jr., Ken Billups and Owen Wilson, co-owners of The Miracle Theatre, Councilman Eloy Morales Jr., Christopher Jackson, Cedric Morris, Sr. Project Manager with Thomas Safran & Associates and Ella Thompson, partner with Venable LLP.
The event was hosted by Venable and Extra Space Storage.
The City processed a $10,000 payment in August as part of the agreement.
In the initial planning of the Inglewood Transit Connector the environmental impact report included several options for the proposed route. One included a connection from LAX Airport to the intersection of Century and Prairie.
Inglewood residents are aware that the current ITC route is considered a “rail to nowhere” because it currently stretches only 1.6 miles from the Metro Crenshaw/LAX line at Florence and Market across Manchester down Prairie to Hardy.
Related: Inglewood Transit Connector construction cost swells to nearly $3 BILLION
The construction costs of the transit connector have swelled to three times its initial price tag.
In July 2021, costs were initially pegged at $1.15 billion and then jumped to $1.6 billion.
According to the Inglewood Transit Connector Joint Powers Authority meeting agenda for Oct. 11 those costs are now projected at close to $3 billion with no discussion as to why.
So far the City has not publicly detailed any potential plans to extend the line further than Prairie and Hardy which is a block away from the Intuit Dome.
Is a rail extension in the works for Century Blvd. and more importantly, is the City waiting until AFTER the 2024 elections to spring it on Inglewood residents?
2 Comments
If they remain true to past behaviour – Of course they are waiting and then it will be a limited (if any) public comment “emergency meeting” with virtually no public notice with extremely limited (if any) physical documents while the on-line documents will predictably suffer “technical difficulties” until AFTER the 5-0 vote has been cast.
Yes we can almost guess this is but one of the reasons that without our consent the council extended their own terms in office under the guise of “saving money” as if part-time is more important than the right to democracy.
These people are assholes