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≡ INTEL REPORT ≡
“Despite good-faith efforts to reach a deal that would benefit both the Santa Monica community and work for LA28, ultimately the two parties were not able to agree to terms around community benefits, operational details and financial guarantees.
“LA28 informed the city Friday that it plans to host beach volleyball elsewhere.”
That is from a statement posted Tuesday by the City of Santa Monica, stating that negotiations over staging beach volleyball on the Santa Monica beach have ended.
Discussions on a venue agreement began in early 2023 and went through several phases, looking close to completion at one point, but floundering in late 2024, as the Santa Monica City Council kept asking for guarantees on specific areas to be used by LA28, and what “legacy” the organizing committee would leave behind.
Three new City Council members were elected last November, and discussions did not advance past the questions raised in a public hearing last October. According to the statement:
“At a public study session on Oct. 8, 2024, the Santa Monica City Council discussed the potential impacts of being a venue city and directed staff to negotiate more tangible benefits for residents and businesses and greater clarity and assurances about financial and other impacts on residents and businesses, particularly on and around the Santa Monica Pier. LA28 declined to adjust the proposed agreement to accommodate these terms.”
The organizing committee will find another venue, with many to choose from in Southern California, including historic sites in the development of the sport in Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach, Huntington Beach and many others.
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At a marathon Tuesday meeting of the Los Angeles City Council’s Economic Development and Jobs Committee, a motion to pursue the long-sought expansion of the Los Angeles Convention Center was approved, and sent on – with conditions – to the full City Council for its Wednesday meeting.
As the construction of the expansion, to connect the West and South halls as needed for larger conventions and add meeting and event spaces, cannot be completed in time for the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the new plan is to conduct a “phased delivery” that will begin actual site work in September 2025.
Partial demolition of the West Hall would begin in January 2026 and the exterior of the new building to be done by the end of May 2028, in time to pause for the 1 June to 30 September usage for the 2028 Games. Once finished, construction would be completed by March of 2029.
The costs are currently estimated at $2.2 billion, with lots of variables and significant worry on behalf of the City Council committee members about the impact on the city’s shaky finances. But the hearing also included pleas from the City’s Tourism Department that the expansion is desperately needed to allow Los Angeles to compete with other first-tier convention markets; a September 2023 survey from the Wall Street Journal ranked L.A. 21st in a ranking of U.S. convention centers.
For the LA28 organizers, having a major construction project going on at the Convention Center, a key venue with multiple sports and next to the equally-critical L.A. Live campus – with more venues – is a new headache it will have to manage, assuming the project does go forward.
The item is to be placed on the City Council agenda for Wednesday.
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The International Olympic Committee is slated to meet online on Wednesday (9th), with a more-complete venue plan due from the LA28 organizers.
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