The development group is known as LA Arena Land Co. and includes Anschutz Entertainment Group, headed by Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz, and media mogul Rupert Murdoch's Fox Entertainment Group. Anschutz helped to build Downtown's wildly successful Staples Center sports and entertainment facility, which has been credited with helping to turn the CBD around since opening about 18 months ago. Murdoch, owner of several TV networks and newspapers around the world, also owns the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The group's $1-billion-plus project would surround Staples Center. To be called the LA Sports and Entertainment District, it would be anchored by a 45-story hotel at Olympic Boulevard and Georgia St., a 7,000-sf theater for award shows and other live performances, and a large but undetermined amount of retail space.

Plans also call for a 250,000-sf expansion of the nearby LA Convention Center, plus two apartment towers with a combined 800 units and the eventual addition of another hotel.

Late Thursday, officials of LA Arena Land Co. said they had reached an agreement with community groups, local unions and environmentalists that should help the project move forward. Those groups vowed to drop their longstanding opposition to the project in exchange for the development group's promise to hire mostly union help, pay everyone a "living wage," and to add more affordable housing and parks in the area.

"Quality jobs and strong, balanced communities are vital to the future of Los Angeles," LA Arena Land Co. SVP Ted Tanner said in announcing the compromise. "This agreement will guarantee both, while further revitalizing Downtown and adding millions of dollars to the local economy."

Though the LA City Planning Commission unanimously approved creation of the proposed LA Sports and Entertainment District last week, most experts agreed that the plan wouldn't get final approval from the City Council unless the developers were also able to win the support of community groups, unions and environmentalists. With that support now in hand, chances of gaining the City Council's final blessing have been vastly improved. The council is expected to vote on the project later this month.