Inglewood Church in Talks to Buy Forum

One of the Los Angeles area’s largest congregations is in exclusive negotiations to buy the Forum in Inglewood for $23 million and plans to transform the legendary but now mostly silent sports arena into perhaps the country’s largest place of worship.

Faithful Central Bible Church of Inglewood, which holds its Sunday services in a former warehouse, would build a hotel and conference center adjacent to the 17,500-seat Forum as part of a planned religious and entertainment venue, according to Bishop Kenneth C. Ulmer.

“This allows us to reach out into the community . . . to provide economic development and jobs,” said Ulmer, who plans to complete the acquisition by October.

The church had been planning to build a house of worship to accommodate its fast-growing congregation--which numbers about 8,000--when it discovered that the Forum was for sale, Ulmer said. The church held an Easter Sunday service that drew about 12,000 people.

The Forum’s future has been up in the air since June 1999, when its previous owner, Jerry Buss, sold the 33-year-old complex to an affiliate of the L.A. Arena Co. in a deal valued at less than $20 million.

The arena, at Manchester Boulevard and Prairie Avenue, hosted home games for the Lakers basketball team and the Kings hockey franchise until both moved to Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles. The Lakers won six NBA championships while playing at the Forum. The building is currently home to the Sparks of the Women’s National Basketball Assn.

Ulmer described talks with the Forum’s owners as “moving toward finalizing the deal.” But L.A. Arena officials were more cautious.

“We have had some discussions with the Faithful Central Bible Church but no definitive agreement has been reached at this time,” according to a statement by L.A. Arena Co. President Timothy J. Leike.

Faithful Central’s ambitious plan to purchase the Forum comes after a failed attempt by Beverly Hills-based apartment builder Casden Properties Inc. to buy the 29-acre Forum property and develop housing on the site. But that proposal drew opposition from Inglewood Mayor Roosevelt Dorn, who feared the loss of sales tax revenue.

Officials from Casden could not be reached for comment Monday.

Dorn said the Forum provides the city with about $400,000 annually in tax revenue. That is down sharply from when it hosted Lakers and Kings games, he said.

“They understand that the city will not support any project that would remove that property from the tax roll,” said Dorn, who supports the idea of a hotel and conference center. A new hotel “would certainly be beneficial to the city.”

“It’s a wonderful use and it’s something that will be embraced by the community, by the mayor and the political forces in the community,” said Los Angeles real estate broker John Cushman, whose firm is representing the church.

Ulmer said the church would use the Forum primarily for its Sunday services and would continue to book other events at the facility. He said the Forum and the proposed hotel and conference center would target Christian conventions, conferences and crusades.

“Los Angeles has not done very well in attracting such events,” Ulmer said. “Now the Forum has become freed up for that kind of business.”

Ulmer, in addition to his role as a religious leader, has been prominent in L.A.’ African American political scene. He was close to Tom Bradley when he was mayor of Los Angeles, and Ulmer served on the board of Rebuild LA.

Ulmer arrived at the former Baptist church in 1982, when it had fewer than 200 members. Now Faithful Central, which is affiliated with the Macedonia International Bible Fellowship, holds three Sunday services, which attract up to 2,500 people each.

The Forum would rank as the biggest house of worship in Southern California. The move would come when many other “megachurches” have sought to break their huge congregations into smaller units because of concerns that church members will find massive services too impersonal.

Crenshaw Christian Center’s Faithdome, which seats 10,146, is the largest-capacity church in Southern California. The church bought the dome in 1981. It was the sports arena for Pepperdine University until the school moved out of central Los Angeles to its current campus in Malibu.

Several Southern California megachurches boast congregations of more than 10,000. Among the largest are the Saddleback Valley Community Church in Orange County and the First African American Methodist Church and West Angeles Church of God in Christ in South-Central Los Angeles.

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Times staff writer David Lauter contributed to this report.