Site Analysis of Proposed L.A. County NFL Stadiums

Zachary ZabelUP206A

March 19, 2012

Facility: $1 billion (all privately funded) 68,000 seat stadium expandable to 78,000 for major events

Location: On the site of the current West Hall of the LA Convention Center, adjacent to the STAPLES Center

Travel: Access to over 20 freeway interchanges, utilization of STAPLES Center parking model to limit congestion

Facility:Location:Travel:

Facility: 75,000 seat stadium (all privately funded), built into a hillside to reduce construction costs and materials

Location: City of Industry 20 miles east of downtown L.A.

Travel: “Replicating model of other NFL stadiums by locating outside the congestion of a metropolitan area”

Spatial Analyst• Kernel Density of existing football stadium seats

•Kernel Density of Metrolink commuter rail stations

•Euclidean Distance to Metro Rail

•Feature to Raster of population over 67 years old

Network Analysis•Built a network dataset to perform service areas around facilities (stadium sites)

•Travel times derived from dividing distance of streets by speed limits for L.A. County

Noise Buffers•Calculated from a maximum noise level of 140dB(Derived from a 137dB recording at the 2006 NFC Championship in Seattle, the NFL’s loudest stadium)

•Sustained exposure at 85dB+ results in permanent hearing loss, at 100dB serious damage can occur in 15 minutes

Findings• Farmers Field in high proximity to existing stadiums

•Farmers Field very high in proximity to Metro Rail, L.A. Stadium low

•Both stadiums “moderate” in access to MetroLink

•Hotspot Analysis: Both sites “moderately suitable”, far more suitable locations: Montebello, parts of the San Fernando Valley

•Network Analysis: Farmers Field within 30min of most major L.A. County population centers, L.A. Stadium up to an hour from the Westside, Long Beach, and San Fernando Valley

•Farmers Field will expose a far greater amount of residents to disruptive levels of noise

Conclusions and Cautions• Both projects are massive investments for the returns provided

•Externalities such as traffic and noise will be limited to a few days a year

•Stadiums will draw visitors from all over Southern California, not just L.A. County

•Network Analysis does not take into account that Los Angeles Stadium will better serve the Inland Empire (San Bernardino and Riverside Counties) and Orange County

•The importance of access to transit may be low, NFL gameday travelers are more likely to drive

Skills Utilized ModelingMeasurement Analysis (Noise Dispersion, Proximity Rasters, Euclidean Distance)Custom Shapefile Creation/Original Data (Site Parcels)Extracting information from bufffer (dB and population)Charts and imagesHotspot Analysis (Spatial Analyst)Network Analysis (Network Analyst)Inset MapBufferingGeoprocessing (Clipping)Geocoding (Current stadiums)

SourcesReferences: http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2010/06/16/usa-usa-nascar-nfl-may-be-louder-than-the-vuvuzela/http://www.farmersfield.com/http://www.losangelesfootballstadium.com/http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-distance.htmhttp://www.worldstadiums.com/north_america/countries/united_states/california.shtml

Data Sources: Lab 1, 2 Prepared Files LA Locator from Lab 4American FactFinderMetro Developer (http://developer.metro.net/introduction/gis-data/download-gis-data/)MetroLink (http://www.metrolinktrains.com/agency/page/title/facts) UCLA Mapshare

Presentation Image Sources:http://farmersfield.com/http://www.losangelesfootballstadium.com/