L.A. Schedules $100M in Upgrades at Exposition Park Ahead of Olympics

Los Angeles officials are anticipating a new funding tranche to help prepare a major venue for the looming 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Mayor Karen Bass on Monday announced nearly $100 million of mostly state grants for enhancements to Exposition Park, a 160-acre assemblage of stadiums, museums and gardens adjacent to University of Southern California’s campus and southeast of Downtown L.A. 

The bulk of the proposed funding, $96.5 million, would come from the state, and is now earmarked for “critical improvements and maintenance” via Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed fiscal year 2026-27 budget. U.S. Rep Sydney Kamlager-Dove also secured $1 million in federal appropriations funding.

Exposition Park houses BMO Stadium — which is a venue for multiple 2026 World Cup games later this year and the home of Major League Soccer’s LAFC — as well as USC’s L.A. Memorial Coliseum, the California Science Center, and the upcoming, billion-dollar Lucas Museum of Narrative Art. 

The park will be part of the Olympic opening and closing ceremonies in 2028, as well as track and field, lacrosse, flag football and badminton. The park is expected to see some 10 million visitors through 2028. 

“Los Angeles is about to enter the most intensive, and exciting, three-year period of major sporting events that any city in the world has ever experienced, and these investments will ensure that Angelenos continue to benefit from these events for decades to come,” Bass said in a statement. 

Construction is expected to begin in early 2027, but the state funding is conditional on the Legislature’s approval of Newsom’s budget. The deadline for California’s fiscal year budget approval is June 15. 

“These upgrades to Exposition Park are essential as we welcome the world for the Olympics and Paralympics and World Cup,” Wade Crowfoot, California’s secretary of natural resources, said in a statement. “Just as important, these upgrades also improve the safety and usability of the park for Angelenos who need it to get outdoors. We’re proud of these proposed improvements and unique partnerships that are making Exposition Park a truly world-class urban destination.”

Aside from these enhancement projects, Exposition Park has already secured hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years tied to its long-gestating master plan. In August 2024, for example, the park announced it had secured more than $350 million in state funding toward a 6-acre park and underground parking structure ahead of the Games.

Nick Trombola can be reached at ntrombola@commercialobserver.com.