The proposed downtown Los Angeles football stadium now has a designer. Developer AEG announced Friday that it had selected architecture firm Gensler to design Farmers Field, the $1 billion NFL stadium and events center that would be built next to L.A Live and Staples Center.
AEG has already begun drafting an environmental impact report for the project, which is required for city approval, and Gensler plans to complete initial design drawings for the stadium by the first quarter of 2012.
Bringing the NFL back to Los Angeles — which hasn’t had a team since 1995 — won’t be easy. The stadium still needs city approval and likely would require the uprooting of an existing NFL franchise. The project is also a complicated undertaking, requiring the demolition of part of the Convention Center to make way for the stadium. There’s also a competing proposal for a stadium in the City of Industry.
Sports businessman Casey Wasserman, who is working with AEG on the proposed stadium, recently told The Hollywood Reporter that bringing the NFL back to L.A. “is one of the last unique things to do in the business of sports.”
Gensler has previously worked with AEG: the architecture firm designed the 54-story hotel tower that is part of the developer’s L.A. Live mixed-use project. Gensler is also known for designing 2000 Avenue of the Stars, the Century City office building that is home to CAA.
Los Angeles-based Gensler had been competing with architecture firms HKS of Dallas and Kansas City, Mo.-based HNTB for the commission. Gensler has a team with solid stadium-designing experience. The company’s Ron Turner, who will work on the project, was involved in the design of Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field and Cincinnati’s Paul Brown Stadium.
