Inglewood's Multibillion-Dollar Football Stadium Is Taking Shape. We Got A Look Inside

Construction on Los Angleles' newest stadium is halfway finished, and the firms overseeing the project says it's on schedule to open the facility for the 2020 football season.

Members of the news media got a peek inside the semi-constructed arena, including a view from the center of what will later be the field.

Besides the stadium for the Rams and the Chargers, the Turner-AECOM-Hunt joint venture will include a 298-acre "urban village" that will include a 6,000-seat performing arts venue, 2,500 residences, 25 acres of public parks and 2 million square feet of retail space.

It's unclear what the final price tag will be. It started at $2.6 billion, but then in March NFL owners approved raising the debt waiver to nearly $5 billion for the first phase of the project, which doesn't include the residential properties or the retail space.

This crane's job is to lift more than 30 pieces onto those vertical concrete pillars. Each one weighs about 2 million pounds. (Photo by Caleigh Wells/LAist)

Elston Ridgle, the program safety director for the project, played in the NFL for seven years, including a year on the Los Angeles Raiders in 1993. Ridgle grew up in the Inglewood area and said the project means a lot to him.

"It's really an iconic venue not only for L.A. but for Inglewood itself," he said. "It brings us on the map."

The stadium will also host the closing ceremonies for L.A.'s 2028 Summer Olympics. Here's a cool time-lapse video of the project so far:

Roughly 2,000 workers are building the stadium, with about one-quarter of them local hires, said Michelle Ballard, the project's vice president of community engagement. She said the crews have put in about 6 million hours of work so far.

Other than the "guitar pick" shape of the roof, the stadium's other unusual characteristic is that it's built 100 feet below ground level. That will keep the nosebleed seats from being too high -- an important feature when low-flying planes are coming into LAX just four miles away.

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