As the inaugural season of Los Angeles’ new NFL franchise approaches, a big step forward has now been announced in building the team a permanent home. According to a press release, the firm of Turner/AECOM has been hired to construct the Rams’ stadium—and they’re confirming a few other details of just what it is that they’ll be constructing.
The Turner/AECOM consortium counts no less than 17 previous NFL stadium builds and another 10 renovations in their previous history, so they clearly know a bit about the workings of a modern football arena. When the facility opens for the 2019 season, the expectations will have been set pretty high.
“The new home of the Rams will set the gold standard for stadiums,” Peter Davoren, president and CEO of Turner said in the announcement.
What we know of the current design details is that it’s definitely going to be big. Really, really big. Like, there is capacity for almost every person who lives within the city of Boulder, Colo., to attend a game together—that kind of big. It breaks down to 70,000 seats, 27,000 standing spectators, 16,000 premium seats and 275 luxury suites. All in all, there will be 3 million square feet of space inside the stadium ready to light up for the 10 or so Rams games to be played there each season. Building all of that will take an estimated 3,500 to perhaps even 10,000 workers on site working in all facets of the construction project.
While the selection of Turner/AECOM is not exactly a shocker—Turner Construction Co. already had a separate contact in place for demolition and other work at the site—the president of the Hollywood Park Land Co, Terry Fancher, obviously feels strongly about the decision.
“We have hired the best team to build the largest and most technologically advanced sports stadium in the world for the Los Angeles Rams,” he stated.
For the first few seasons the team is in town for before the new stadium is ready, they will be playing at the LA Memorial Coliseum near USC.