The California state Senate has approved a bill allowing an environmental exemption that would allow Majestic Realty Co. to develop a proposed 75,000-seat football stadium in the City of Industry, CA.
Majestic will reportedly begin approaching owners at the end of this season about bringing a National Football League team to Los Angeles for the first time since the Raiders returned to Oakland in 1994. The Rams left Anaheim in Orange County for St. Louis the following year, leaving the nation's second-largest media market without an NFL franchise.
Opponents of the proposed City of Industry stadium in the neighboring community of Walnut filed a lawsuit to block the project, claiming that Industry failed to adequately access the environmental impacts. However, the state Senate last week approved an exemption to the California Environmental Quality Act that nullifies additional environmental measures demanded by stadium opponents. The bill still requires Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's signature.
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Without the legislation, "stadium proponents will continue to be bogged down by this frivolous lawsuit and will not be able to compete for an NFL team in early 2010," said California Assembly Assistant Speaker pro Tempore Isadore Hall, III (D- Compton) in a release, alleging that a small group of opponents was seeking an additional $800 million in mitigation measures in order to kill the project.
Hall said the proposed LEED-certified stadium complex would create more than 18,000 jobs, generate more than $762 million in economic output and add than $320 million in salaries for residents in Los Angeles County and surrounding communities.