Although the entirety of the nation will be enraptured over the Super Bowl this Sunday, the city of Los Angeles is more anxious about the future of its Hollywood Park development than some football game.
The NFL knows it has a tremendous economic impact, at least momentarily, on cities that host the Super Bowl. The organizing committee estimates between $234 and $477-million in economic impact due to spending and events tied to the game. For some cities the impact may be greater or worse depending on the amount of preparation it must undertake, but typically you see revenue spikes across retail and hospitality.
Hospitality developers in Los Angeles are responsible for the city leading the nation in hotel room construction, and the projects that opened in January did well to anticipate the Super Bowl as many rooms are already booked. This would include over 1,700 rooms in downtown alone. Hospitality data and analytics company, STR, recently published room-rate projections that could reach daily rates of up to $445 for Super Bowl weekend.
So why wouldn’t the city of Los Angeles, or any city for that matter, bank on more events such as this in order to gain an economic boost?
“Despite this short-term gain, economic growth — a result of an increase in the amount of money people have and can spend — doesn’t typically result from one-time events like Super Bowls or even the Olympics,” David Swindell, director of the Center for Urban Innovation at Arizona State University’s School of Public Affairs, told Bisnow.
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The real money is in Hollywood Park and the massive 300-acre mixed-use retail development in which SoFi Stadium is only the center piece. Buildings have already been erected at the site, including NFL Media Headquarter, but up to 5 million square feet of creative office space, 2,500 residential units, 890,000 square feet of retail, plus a 300-room hotel are expected to garnish the land.
Chris Meany, the development manager for Hollywood Park in 2016, stated that the project will generate “tens of millions of dollars in annual revenue.”
“That’s going to yield lots of additional spending in that tight geographic area. The stadium is the glue holding together that development, and the development most likely would not have happened but for the stadium, and that massive investment in the stadium.”
With the immeasurable amount of publicity that Hollywood Park is currently receiving due to the Super Bowl, staking your claim for a space in the retail corridor will be costly.