A National Football League team would have to commit to remaining in a proposed downtown Los Angeles stadium for 20 to 30 years for the city to approve the project, a key city negotiator said Monday.

The city will seek “hard-and-fast agreements” that a pro football franchise would not leave a proposed $1 billion stadium to be built on public land next to the Los Angeles Convention Center until city debt related to the project is repaid, Chief Legislative Analyst Gerry Miller told a City Council panel.

The developer, a subsidiary of Anschutz Entertainment Group, has proposed tearing down and rebuilding part of the Convention Center to make way for a privately owned stadium that would complement the firm’s other holdings in the area, including Staples Center, the LA Live entertainment district and two hotels.

The Convention Center work would be financed by $350 million in city borrowing. AEG has promised to make up any shortfall in new tax revenue needed to repay the debt.

Under questioning from Councilman Tony Cardenas, Miller said the added city debt would be repaid over 20 to 30 years and officials want to see contracts ensuring that an NFL team “will be staying as long as those bonds are outstanding.”

Los Angeles officials and fans are sensitive about such commitments because the city has lost two NFL teams in the past — the Raiders to Oakland and the Rams to Anaheim and eventually St. Louis.
At this point, neither AEG nor a competing developer proposing a stadium in the city of Industry has an NFL team lined up.