Los Angeles developer seeks team for stadium

Thursday, billionaire real estate mogul Ed Roski announced plans to build an $800 million, privately financed stadium 20 miles east of Los Angeles. Today, he will start shopping for a team to play in it -- probing a small group that includes the Vikings.

"We'll start talking to the NFL and the teams," Roski said at a news conference. "We've got this [proposal] out of the way. Now we'll concentrate on getting a team."

The Vikings are among five NFL teams with outdated stadiums that make them a target for Roski. The others are Buffalo, San Diego, Jacksonville and New Orleans.

"If I was sitting there, I would be waiting for my call," said Roski, who released preliminary designs that included purple seats throughout the stadium. "This is a top market. The team that decides to come to Los Angeles is financially going to be one of the top teams in the league, by far."

Roski said construction on the 75,000-seat stadium could be completed as soon as 2011 but will not start until a team commits to moving there. The Vikings lease at the Metrodome expires after the 2011 season.

Vikings owner Zygi Wilf hopes to have his Minneapolis stadium project, now estimated at more than $1 billion, approved in the 2009 legislative session. But state legislators dealt him a setback earlier this month, rejecting a request to spend $2 million on preconstruction work, and have offered no assurances of meaningful debate next year.

The Vikings declined comment on Roski's proposal.

Relocation of the Vikings or any other team would require approval from the NFL. The league was not directly involved in the development of Thursday's announcement, but league spokesman Greg Aiello said: "We are aware of it and will continue to monitor all stadium-related developments in the Los Angeles area."

Multiple Los Angeles stadium proposals have failed since the Rams departed in 1994, mostly because of financing or logistics questions. Roski said his proposal has "taken one point of uncertainty and made it a certainty."

He added: "The stadium is a certainty, and it will be built."

Roski's company, Majestic Realty Co., already owns the 600-acre site in the City of Industry. He said the stadium would be built with "absolutely no taxpayer dollars" and that an existing hillside will limit the demand for steel and thus save about $400 million on construction costs.