One of the two features I was most curious about was the translucent roof, and SoFi Stadium and Hollywood Park managing director Jason Gannon told … But it's also going to be a wonderful place for me and my family to come here on a Tuesday night and sit by the lake and have a picnic. It has everything from marble-paneled elevator banks and gorgeous lounge areas to four separate bars focused on a single beverage: champagne, tequila, whiskey and wine.“I could go on a million reasons what makes it special, but wherever you are, every single place, you feel like a VIP,” Rams coach Sean McVay said. SoFi Stadium was designed by HKS; it features a fixed, translucent ETFE roof—designed to cover both the stadium proper and the adjacent pedestrian plaza. The open-air SoFi Stadium is the first indoor-outdoor stadium to be constructed and the NFL’s largest at 3.1 million square feet (288,500 square meters). The 2026 World Cup seems likely to hold matches at the stadium, which is also expected to host the opening and closing ceremonies of the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028.Things will be even busier outside SoFi Stadium on the 298-acre campus, which already has greenery and a man-made lake. The league will debut another arena, Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, with the Raiders on Sept. 21. “It seems like it’s a hologram. Kroenke dazzled his fellow multimillionaires with sketches of a strikingly unique stadium with a surrounding development that would become the NFL’s West Coast hub.While the full scope of that $5 billion development is still years away from completion, the centerpiece of Kroenke's dream has come to vibrant life at the former site of the Hollywood Park racetrack.SoFi Stadium appears to live up to all of Kroenke's promises as it prepares to open its doors Sunday night for its inaugural event: the Rams' season opener against the Dallas Cowboys.“Every time I’m in there, there’s some aspect, some design element that’s just overwhelming,” Rams general manager Les Snead said. What they mean is that SoFi Stadium has a roof — a massive, clear canopy arching artfully from the ground across the entire arena bowl and an adjoining plaza with a …

The stadium is built deep in the ground with the playing field 100 feet below ground level, and the areas behind the main seating bowls are so vast and spacious that they're called “canyons.”.They're all meticulously landscaped and appointed, and fresh air streams into large gathering areas designed to be used by suite holders all year round, not just on those 16 game days per season.As you might expect in an industry heavily dependent on selling luxury, SoFi Stadium's upscale amenities are remarkable. The 56th Super Bowl will be here in February 2022, while college football's national championship game follows in 2023. The stadium seats up to 70,240 spectators for most events, with the ability to expand it with 30,000 additional seats for larger events. You’re going to remember how this project transformed Inglewood and Los Angeles.”.Kroenke's employees make it clear SoFi Stadium is a legacy project for a man who has built hundreds of unremarkable buildings in his career. “Mr. ".The entire bowl is dominated by the Oculus video board, a unique two-sided oval of 80 million sparkling pixels beaming 4K replays, statistics and advertisements everywhere.The arena bowl is just the start of SoFi Stadium's opulence, however. Before he became one of the most prolific owners of teams in sports history, the real estate developer married to a Walmart heir made a chunk of his fortune by building Walmarts and the shopping centers attached to them.SoFi Stadium is improbably, thrillingly big — the NFL’s largest stadium in pure size at 3.1 million square feet while seating 70,000, with the ability to accommodate up to 100,000 if needed — but this is no big-box warehouse.Demoff says Kroenke had a prime directive to everybody involved in the project.“You can’t undershoot Los Angeles,” Demoff recalled. It’s going to host the world’s greatest events, and while we may regret what Sunday is going to look like, you’re not going to remember the way it opened. The roof is made of material that dissipates the heat, and dozens of roof panels can be rolled back to allow in even more fresh air.“We had this unique opportunity to create a building that really captured the beauty of why so many people live here and come visit here,” said Lance Evans, the main architect on the project from design firm HKS. I hope it evolves into a wonderful destination for SoCal, and it'll start to resonate and create memories.”,More AP NFL: https://apnews.com/NFL and https://twitter.com/AP_NFL.© 2020 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Satellite Information Network, LLC.Your California Privacy Rights/Privacy Policy.

It’s the landscape, but we didn't want to sacrifice a multitude of other events that this building could and should host. Sunday's opener is one milestone on the journey.“I'm not going to lie, it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” said Evans, who lives 10 minutes away. I don’t know what they’ve done, but it’s overwhelming.

“There is definitely a special feeling that is different from any stadium I've been in.”.This empty NFL season is only the opening chapter of SoFi Stadium's life. The 1,450-ton, 75,000-foot long cable net system was completed in October 2019. INGLEWOOD, Calif. (AP) — When Stan Kroenke asked his fellow NFL owners for permission to return pro football to Los Angeles nearly a half-decade ago, he won them over by promising something nobody else could realistically deliver.The Rams owner vowed to build a football palace.The billionaire proposed a luxurious, massive new home for his NFL team, a landmark that would become the most important sports arena in North America's second-largest city for the next century. According to structureflex.com, ETFE is ideal for outdoor-indoor spaces, which is exactly how SoFi Stadium was designed. You can’t undershoot the new stadium in the entertainment capital of the world and in one of the world’s great international cities.”.The architects and builders say they’ve created the first “indoor-outdoor” stadium, but that classification doesn't exactly make sense until it's experienced.What they mean is that SoFi Stadium has a roof — a massive, clear canopy arching artfully from the ground across the entire arena bowl and an adjoining plaza with a separate 6,000-seat performance venue— but the building also is open at each end and on its concourses.California breezes slip under the canopy to cool the playing field, which didn’t feel particularly hot last week even with a summer sun directly overhead.