When the Los Angeles Rams moved back to the West Coast, owner Stan Kroenke had a vision of building a state-of-the-art stadium that can serve as one of the best sports and entertainment hubs in the world.
Four years later, the construction of SoFi Stadium is almost complete and the Rams are expected to move into their new home at the start of the 2020 season.
While SoFi Stadium is looking amazing, the path to get to this point has not been easy. Not only did the Rams require an additional $500 million loan from the league to complete the stadium, but a number of workers have also contracted coronavirus (COVID-19) since the pandemic began a few months ago.
Additionally, it appears the team received the worst news of all on Friday as Nathan Fenno of the L.A. Times is reporting that construction will now be put on hold after a worker fell to his death:
A construction worker died after falling at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood on Friday morning and work on the $5-billion project has been temporarily paused, according to three people with knowledge of the incident.
A spokesman for Turner-AECOM Hunt, the joint venture overseeing the project, didn’t immediately comment.
One person who had been briefed on the incident, who spoke on the condition they not be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter, said the worker fell from a height of 50 to 60 feet while working in the southeast corner of the stadium.
The decision to shut construction down for the time being is obviously the right one as there still is plenty of time to complete it before the Rams host the New Orleans Saints for their first preseason game on Aug. 14. There were concerts scheduled before that, but those have all been cancelled due to the pandemic.
This is not the first scare that there has been since construction started as a crane fell down a few months back. Luckily, no one was injured when that happened, although the same unfortunately cannot be said this time around.
Hopefully whenever construction is resumed, everyone can remain safe and the stadium can be completed without any further issues.
