Venue News: LA Leaders Fast-Track Downtown Stadium

Los Angeles City leaders have embraced the idea of a new, privately financed downtown NFL stadium and moved this week week to fast-track the project. “We want all hands on deck,” said Councilwoman Janice Hahn, chairwoman of the Trade, Commerce and Tourism Committee, which listened to AEG president Tim Leiweke’s presentation of his company’s plan for a $1 billion football stadium attached to a renovated Los Angeles Convention Center. “The case to bring a team here is a great case.” AEG is owned by Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz…

…London’s 537 million pound ($853 million) Olympic stadium may be torn down just after the 2012 Summer Games as part of plans being submitted this week by one of two bidders hoping to take possession of the site. Premier League soccer teams Tottenham Hotspur and West Ham both want anchor tenant status at the East London venue. A decision will be made in March on plans for the 80,000-seat facility, which will host the opening ceremony and track events. Tottenham, a North London-based team since its inception in 1882, and partner Anschutz Entertainment Group, are proposing ripping down the stadium for a soccer-specific facility. That means it would function as a track and field facility for just 30 days…

…Dave Prater and his crew began systematically killing the grass at Dodger Stadium this week, and no one from the Dodgers protested. Prater did so by spreading 5,000 cubic yards of dirt — about 500 dump-truck loads equal to about 1.5 million pounds — over the field to create a track of berms and moguls and jumps for Saturday night’s Monster Energy AMA Supercross Series races, which will be held for the first time at the home of the Dodgers. They also plan a Monster Jam truck event there Feb. 19, so the field will remain covered with Prater’s dirt for about five weeks…

… Penn State’s Board of Trustees this week approved the name of the university’s future state-of-the-art, multipurpose arena Pegula Ice Arena after donors Terrence M. and Kim Pegula. In mid September, the university announced the Pegulas’ $88 million gift, the largest private gift in Penn State’s history, which was intended to fund the arena as well as help to establish an NCAA Division I men’s hockey program….

… April 1 can’t come soon enough for proponents of a new football stadium at South Dakota State. That’s when the school figures to seek — for a second time — approval from the Board of Regents to move forward with the preliminary stages of replacing undersized and outdated Coughlin-Alumni Stadium. SDSU first tried in October, only to be rebuffed because the regents wanted time to prioritize the 10-year facility needs across their six-school system…

…Media magnate Pierre Karl Péladeau says he’s willing to pour “tens of millions of dollars” into building a multipurpose arena in Quebec City. Citing the return of NHL hockey to the city as his priority, the president of Quebecor confirmed his intentions in Quebec City on Sunday night. “We have proposed something to the city that we consider to be very substantial,” Péladeau told reporters, declining to elaborate on how much he’s prepared to spend because “we want to keep these talks private.”