September 23, 2005
Hollywood Park News
According to the Los Angeles Business News, Churchill Downs Inc. has completed the sale of Hollywood Park Racetrack at 1050 S. Avenue of Champions in Inglewood to the Bay Meadows Land Company for $257.5 million. The terms of the sale calls for Bay Meadows to continue offering live horse racing at the historic track for the next three years, while it pursues legislative action to allow additional gaming operations, such as slot machines. Bay Meadows also plans to continue pursuing entitlements from the city of Inglewood for alternative development of the 238-acre site should it not receive approval for the gaming.
Hollywood Park first opened in 1938 as the Hollywood Turf Club. The Club's original chairman was Jack Warner. Warner gained the support of 600 original shareholders, including many Hollywood luminaries such as Al Jolson and Raoul Walsh (two of the original directors of the board), Bing Crosby, Walt Disney, Ronald Colman, Wallace Beery, Irene Dunne, Joan Blondell, Sam Goldwyn, Darryl Zanuck, George Jessel, Ralph Bellamy and Mervyn LeRoy (the man who gave us "The Wizard of Oz," and who served as the director of Hollywood Park from 1941 until his death in 1986).
The Streamline Moderne style clubhouse was designed by Stiles O. Clements, architect, and Edward Huntsman-Trout, landscape architect, in 1937. Later additions were designed by Fred Barlow, Jr. The park closed from 1942 to 1944 during World War II and was used as a storage facility. In 1949, the original grandstand and clubhouse were destroyed by a fire. The facilities were rebuilt and the race track reopened for business in 1950.
The racetrack underwent a $20 million renovation in 1990, and a casino was added to the complex in 1994. Hollywood Park is also known for having hosted three Breeder's Cups, revolutionized simulcast betting, and being where Laffit Pincay Jr. became the all-time as all-time winningest jockey in horse racing history with 9,531 career wins.
Like Santa Anita Racetrack, its better known cousin (listed on the National Trust's 2000 Eleven Most Endangered Historic Places List and featured in the movie Seabiscuit), Hollywood Park has long been subject to development pressures and a series of plans to demolish the track and build on the property. Several years ago, supporters of an Los Angeles based NFL team considered building a new football stadium on the site.
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