NFL Arena Proposed in Los Angeles

Plans for a 75,000-seat stadium that is hoped would help finally lure an NFL team back to the Los Angeles area will be announced Thursday.

Edward P. Roski Jr., a part owner of the Kings and Lakers, will unveil his idea for a stadium in the City of Industry, said John Semcken, vice president of Majestic Realty, Roski’s real estate company.

The stadium, near the southern intersection of the 57 and 60 freeways some 20 miles east of Los Angeles, would be surrounded by a high-end shopping mall, and located on a vacant property which Roski already owns, Semcken said.

"We’ve spent the last year designing a football stadium that is ideally suited for the Southern California marketplace that will be a part of a major entertainment, retail and office development," Semcken told The Associated Press.

"We want to take all of the uncertainty out of this stadium situation," he said.

If a team committed to moving to Los Angeles, "we could begin construction in the final quarter of this year and have it ready for play for the first exhibition game in 2011," Semcken said.

NFL spokesman Greg Aiello told the AP that the league wasn’t involved in Thursday’s news conference.

Meanwhile Wednesday, state lawmakers in Sacramento blocked an effort by the City of Industry to get millions of dollars in tax subsidies to help lure an NFL team

The city had asked for power to divert $820 million in property tax revenue from basic government services and use it for development subsides instead, the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday. But county officials, who argued the money would come from an already tight budget, pressured state lawmakers to vote against the proposal.

Hours before its first hearing, state Senate Majority Leader Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, pulled the proposal from consideration.

Los Angeles, the second-largest market in the country, has been without an NFL team since 1995, when the Raiders moved back to Oakland after playing 13 years at the Los Angeles Coliseum and the Rams moved from Anaheim to St. Louis.

Proposals have been made for numerous stadium sites in the area over the years including the Coliseum and the Rose Bowl in Pasadena as well as in Irwindale, Inglewood, Carson and Anaheim.