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Two of L.A.’s longest-running business sagas have reached critical turning points and it’s about time.

DreamWorks SKG and the owners of Playa Vista have come to preliminary terms for development of a 12-acre parcel that will become the fledgling studio’s new home. And late next month, National Football League owners will hear the proposals from two competing L.A. groups for construction of a new football stadium and with it, the awarding of an NFL franchise.

These are not done deals not by a long shot. The Playa Vista negotiations, which dragged out for months, had become so acrimonious that DreamWorks co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg threatened to pull out of the deal altogether only to have state and local officials apparently put the squeeze on the Playa Vista investment group, led by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. With lots of detail work to follow, neither side is breaking out the champagne just yet.

With football, the scenario is even more tenuous. Simply put, there is no assurance that either L.A. proposal will win over the NFL owners, a mercurial, unpredictable lot who seldom speak with one voice. In fact, many are now betting that Houston has a better shot at getting the new franchise.

For more than two years now, a group led by Ed Roski Jr. and Philip Anschutz also owners of the Kings and developers of the new Staples arena have been pushing a plan to essentially create a new Coliseum on the site of the existing facility. Despite strong political support, their efforts have been thwarted because, frankly, the NFL is not wild about returning to Exposition Park.

Along comes Michael Ovitz, who presented to the league a far different proposal one for a stadium-retail complex just off the San Diego Freeway in the city of Carson. Ovitz has had no trouble lining up an impressive group of supporters, including supermarket magnate Ron Burkle and former Lakers star Magic Johnson.

While football stadiums and movie studios are very different types of developments, they say a lot about the way business often gets done in Los Angeles.

First and foremost, you can’t fight City Hall. When DreamWorks first agreed to settle in Playa Vista, local officials attached a $70 million incentive package that included all kinds of breaks for the basic infrastructure and mitigation work. In the end, that could have been Katzenberg’s trump card. Without DreamWorks, Playa Vista would have become just another big development and subject to the same kind of troublesome red tape that lesser developers must face. (For his part, Ovitz isn’t even bothering with L.A. By settling in Carson and attaching a tax-generating shopping center government holdups will be the least of his problems.)

What these cases also show, regrettably, is a continued inability among L.A. businesses to develop a united front. That’s the driving force behind Houston’s bid for an NFL franchise (as well as those of other cities getting teams in recent years). In L.A., there’s scant enthusiasm about even having a team, much less getting behind a single proposal.

As for Playa Vista, it was clear from the beginning that DreamWorks would be pretty much on its own even though its studio would have a significant economic benefit within portions of the local economy.

L.A. just has too many agendas and too many voices for its own good.

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