Earlier this week, filmmaker George Lucas announced that he has selected Los Angeles to host the billion-dollar art museum that he's been wanting to build. The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, which will include Lucas' collection of works by Norman Rockwell, N.C. Wyeth, and R. Crumb, as well as props, artwork, and memorabilia from Lucas' films, including Star Wars, as well as from other famous Hollywood productions. The museum will be built next to the Coliseum in Exposition Park, just south of downtown LA.
And today, the National Football League's Chargers announced that they will relocate to the Los Angeles area, leaving San Diego to play their home games at the StubHub Center in Carson for the next two years, before moving into the new $2.66 billion stadium that the Rams are building in Inglewood.
Los Angeles welcomed 47.3 million visitors in 2016 — an increase of nearly four percent over 2015, according to data from Los Angeles Tourism & Convention Board that Garcetti cited. That's the sixth consecutive year that Los Angeles has set a visitation record, moving the city closer to the major's goal of welcoming 50 million visitors a year by 2020. In addition, 80.9 million travelers passed through LAX in 2016, an increase of more than eight percent over the previous year.
Universal Studios Hollywood is helping to drive that growth, with record-setting daily attendance levels over the holidays, as well as an annual attendance record last year.
"With Comcast NBCUniversal's unprecedented $1.5 billion investment in the company's core businesses of production and tourism, Universal Studios Hollywood has achieved record-breaking attendance, created thousands of jobs and had a positive impact on the region's economy," Ron Meyer, Vice Chairman of NBCUniversal, said.
In addition to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, a new Nintendo-themed land is coming to Universal Studios Hollywood sometime after mid-2020, Universal has announced. The theme park is expanding into former studio space on the Lower Lot following the almost complete rebuild of the Upper Lot, including the new Springfield and Despicable Me areas, in addition to the new Universal Boulevard, central plaza, and The Walking Dead Attraction.
Theme park fans should keep in mind that the LA visitation data is just for the city, and does not include people coming to the area to visit Disneyland (which is located in Anaheim in Orange County, southeast of Los Angeles), if they don't fly through LAX or otherwise stay overnight in the city of Los Angeles. Throw in the Orange County and greater Los Angeles County visitation numbers, and the Southern California region welcomes tens of millions more visitors than just the city of LA each year.
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Traffic depends upon where you live relative to where you are going, of course. I stay off the freeways at rush hour and encounter very little traffic otherwise, as I pretty much keep to my neighborhood unless I am going to a park.
As for the Chargers, no one cares if they come or go unlike the Rams. The only question is why? I suggest the Chargers get together with the Angels to build a suitable stadium. They both need something better.
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