The religious group that owns the Great Western Forum wants to redevelop the Inglewood landmark, and possibly even tear down the arena, to build housing and a shopping center.

Forum Enterprises Inc., a for-profit arm of the Faithful Central Bible Church that owns the arena, is asking some of the region’s largest developers to come up with proposals for the 29-acre site.

The group wants to lease the property, located at the southeast corner of Manchester Boulevard and Prairie Avenue, to a developer. The income stream would give the congregation lasting financial stability, according to Gerard McCallum II, executive vice president of Forum Enterprises.

The arena, which was the longtime home of the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team and was once known as the Fabulous Forum, has been used for Sunday services since 2000. Forum Enterprises also leases the site for concerts, such as an upcoming Rolling Stones show.

“When we first bought the property, the church never planned for the facility to be a church,” said McCallum.

At the outset, church leaders said they wanted to build a hotel and convention center on the site. Those plans, however, were shelved after the September 2001 terrorist attacks.

Now, with Inglewood home prices soaring, the church wants to build a mixed-use project with several hundred units of condominiums and townhomes, an open-air shopping center and an upscale grocery store.

Church leaders would consider proposals that call for tearing down part or all of the Forum. However, the congregation still wants a place to meet somewhere on the site, McCallum said.

“We have kind of been straddling the fence,” he said. “Our members can fill the facility, but we also don’t want to have an empty building six-and-a-half days a week.”

Preservationists are alarmed at the prospect of the arena’s demise. “The Forum really put Inglewood into the national consciousness,” said Ken Bernstein, director of preservation issues at the Los Angeles Conservancy. “The Forum is significant to Inglewood’s history and development and the history of major league sports in Los Angeles.”

Already, some Inglewood city council members are concerned about the redevelopment plans. “I wonder whether the infrastructure will be sufficient,” said Councilman Ralph Franklin. “It’s an ambitious project, but I don’t know how realistic it is at this point.”

While McCallum said the church is still waiting for proposals to come back from developers, he said the development is envisioned to revitalize the area and complement other nearby projects.

“We want to bring the place to life again like it was before the Lakers left,” McCallum said.

Forum could remain


Still, church leadership would prefer to retain the Forum and have it anchor any new development.

Bishop Kenneth C. Ulmer, head of the Faithful Central Bible Church, which has one of the state’s largest congregations, would like to keep control of the 17,500-seat Forum, which takes up a fraction of the parcel, for religious services and meetings.

The church’s for-profit arm hired CB Richard Ellis Group Inc. to recruit a developer for the site. Some developers who have already expressed interest include Earvin “Magic” Johnson’s Canyon-Johnson Urban Fund, J.H. Snyder Co., developer Bob Bisno and Stockbridge Capital Partners.

The church attracts 7,000 to 10,000 for Sunday services and fills the arena on holidays and special events. Any project on the site would have to replace the parking taken up by the development.

If the Forum were retained, money from the redevelopment project would go toward renovating the arena and converting it into a concert and performing arts venue. The number of seats would be shrunk by several thousand.

“We would definitely upgrade and improve the arena,” McCallum said. “There’s discussion whether it would continue to be a basketball stadium as opposed to be a true concert venue.”

Historic hoops


The Great Western Forum, a circular arena with distinctive columns, was built in 1967 by sports promoter Jack Kent Cooke and for decades was the home of the Lakers and the Kings.

Over the years, millions of fans flocked to the arena to watch several Lakers championship seasons, led by stars such as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson.

Dr. Jerry Buss, who bought the arena in 1979, sold the property seven years ago for less than $20 million to the Arena Land Co., an Anschutz Entertainment Group-led partnership that developed the Staples Center, where the basketball team has relocated.

In December 2000, Arena Land sold the Forum to the church, whose rapidly growing congregation made it a powerful force in the Inglewood community, for $22.5 million.

While the neighborhood around the arena initially suffered from the loss of the nightly crowds attending basketball and hockey games, the area of Inglewood has recently been undergoing a revival.

New shopping centers anchored by national retailers have sprung up along Century Boulevard, where several more commercial and residential projects are in various stages of development.

Homebuilders led by John Laing Homes are putting the finishing touches on a new upscale gated community with 376 single family houses, townhomes and condominiums along Pincay Drive.

Meanwhile, Stockbridge Capital Partners LLC a San Mateo real estate investment and development firm bought the nearby 230-acre Hollywood Park racetrack from Churchill Downs Inc. for about $260 million.

Stockbridge has committed to running the racetrack for several years in the hopes of making it profitable, but if those efforts should fail, the company plans to redevelop the racetrack into a mix of housing, shops and possibly hotel rooms.

The Wal-Mart factor


Franklin, the Inglewood councilman, said he is also concerned because early church renderings show that the proposed Forum development would connect to a 60-acre site owned by Rothbart Development Corp.

Rothbart had proposed building a controversial shopping center anchored by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Although voters rejected that notion, a new proposal is likely.

“They want a promenade, where shoppers glide from one side to the other,” he said. Such a connection could be controversial if the church intends to work with Wal-Mart, whose non-union stance has made a stir in labor-friendly Inglewood.

After the Inglewood City Council rejected Rothbart’s Wal-Mart proposal, Wal-Mart attempted to circumvent the city by putting its plans on a referendum last year. In a nationally watched election, Inglewood voters shot down the proposal, which could have included one of the chain’s grocery-selling supercenters.

During the campaign, Bishop Kenneth C. Ulmer, head of the church, opposed the Wal-Mart proposal and was instrumental in defeating the ballot measure, according to several Inglewood political observers who worked on the campaign.

However, McCallum downplayed the church’s role, and said the congregation isn’t opposed to Wal-Mart but rather the company’s plans as they appeared on the ballot.

“We were concerned as property owners that the city was being circumvented by the process,” he said. “It was about trying to protect the value of our land through the public process.”

Franklin said any developer who takes on the redevelopment project will have to be sensitive to community concerns. “At one time we couldn’t give property away,” he said, “but now we can dictate what we want.”

*This story will be available in the Jan. 16 edition of the Business Journal.