On a recent game day at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, the LA Chargers are facing the Baltimore Ravens, and fans driving to the venue are facing a parking showdown of their own. Those who planned ahead might have paid for a spot a half mile away for $65. Stadium parking on resale sites starts at $129.
Two blocks away from SoFi, at an apartment building, a tenant named Thoai directs the driver of a tan Lexus SUV into a parking space for the bargain price of $50.
“I saw the neighbors were doing it too. Why not [earn] extra income?” says Thoai, who declined to give his last name because he doesn’t have the business permits required to sell parking.
Thoai — like many others in the neighborhood — sets up shop for every Chargers and Rams game during football season, sometimes raking in $300 a week. If the parking enforcement officers come by, he tells them the visitors are his guests.
As for those wads of cash people hand him: “Most people nowadays say ‘donation,’” says Thoai.
Thousands of visitors descend on Inglewood by car several times a week to attend football and basketball games, concerts and parties at SoFi Stadium, the Intuit Dome, the Kia Forum, and the YouTube Theater. That makes parking a hot commodity and a crucial dividing line between the winners and losers in the local economy.
Inglewood public school Kelso Elementary sells parking on game days. Photo by Megan Jamerson/KCRW.
Residents and businesses around these venues with any open patch of concrete are making a killing selling parking. Even Inglewood public school Kelso Elementary offers spaces in its lot, five minutes walk from the Forum and 15 to SoFi. (An Inglewood Unified School District spokesperson told KCRW that they indeed have the proper permits for this enterprise, which benefits the school.)
Locals are making money if they have access to parking, even if they’re not selling it themselves. Real estate tycoons might say “location, location, location,” but here in Inglewood it’s “parking, parking, parking,” says Geraldo Lopez, who helps operate his parent’s restaurant, Lalo’s Grill.
Gerardo Lopez (left), Teresa Lopez, and Geraldo Lopez at Lalo’s Grill, the restaurant they own and operate in Inglewood. The family says the stadiums have been great for business. Photo courtesy of Geraldo Lopez.
The Lopez family’s Oaxacan restaurant is one mile west of SoFi Stadium, and there are two city-run parking lots on the block. On game day, they see customers wearing jerseys walking by and the foot traffic helps.
“The stadium, to us, is an opportunity,” says Lopez. “So we noticed a small difference, and to us, that is amazing.”
But local businesses that don’t have their own parking say they are watching the economic rising tide lift other boats while theirs get swamped.
This includes Champ City Bar & Lounge, a sports bar one mile south of the stadium on Prairie Avenue. On game day, the street parking is removed to help with traffic flow, which means visitors can't pull over, and locals don’t bother leaving their homes, says owner Leah Jones.
In eight months, she says her revenue has gone down 60%.
“I've had to change my lifestyle. I've had to change my employees' lifestyles,” says Jones.
She’s part of a group of Inglewood business owners who say years of construction and worsening stadium traffic have killed their livelihoods. She is frustrated that the city didn’t create a business interruption fund or offer grants during construction.
“They basically said, ‘Good luck. Deal with it and figure it out,’” says Jones.
Inglewood Mayor James Butts says it’s not the city’s fault if some businesses aren’t doing great right now. “Every economic indicator indicates that overall, small businesses have thrived here,” he tells KCRW, adding that in the four years since SoFi Stadium opened, the city’s sales tax has increased by $3.2 million.
Once there was a plan to avoid all of the traffic and parking up-sides and downsides. In 2018, as SoFi was under construction, the city proposed an elevated train project to connect LA Metro’s K Line to the Inglewood venues.
But as of October, the $2.2 billion project will no longer move forward. The city failed to get the necessary funding approved by the South Bay Cities Council and Governments after the project lost federal funding in July. Both the owners of SoFi Stadium and Intuit Dome, and Congresswoman Maxine Waters opposed the project.
The best alternative now is to take the bus to a football game. LA Metro sometimes adds extra buses for big events, and they do offer shuttles to the stadium from its nearby parking lots, but those sit in the same traffic as cars.
Mayor Butts says he’s not giving up on a transit solution, but declined to share specifics with KCRW beyond that he is looking at “three alternatives.”
KQED’s Saul Gonzalez contributed to this report.