Word due soon on glitzy sports arena.

INGLEWOOD - A new high-tech arena with a space-age scoreboard and possibly individual computer monitors for fans, along with an attached retail/entertainment center, will soon be announced by the owners of the Los Angeles Kings hockey franchise, said team officials last week.

In addition to the Kings, the arena will likely be the new home of the basketball Los Angeles Lakers. Both teams currently play in the aging Great Western Forum in Inglewood.

The site for the new arena, which will cost in the neighborhood of $200 million, has been narrowed to three locations, said officials. Some sources who did not want to be identified said the site will be Inglewood on the grounds of the Forum, which is adjacent to Hollywood Park Racetrack. Others said Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan is pushing for a site in downtown Los Angeles, specifically near the Los Angeles Convention Center.

Team officials said a site has not yet been selected.

An announcement on the arena and the site is expected soon. Sources said it could be made this week but team officials said it will be made some time this summer.

"There has been some pretty good progress toward selecting a site, and I think there's going to be an announcement fairly soon. We have a target date of September 1999 for it to be completed and ready for use, so that means we have to move pretty soon," said Nick Salata, a spokesman for the Kings.

He said it usually takes about a year of formal planning and site preparation once a location is selected and then two years to complete a project the size anticipated by team owners Philip Anschutz and Edward Roski. Anschutz is a Denver businessman and investor, and Roski is president of Majestic Realty Co., a City of Industry-based real estate company.

A spokesman for California Sports Inc., the corporate entity that owns the Lakers and the Forum, said he did not have any details about the planned new arena. However, he said Jerry Buss, who heads California Sports Inc., has said the Lakers would be a tenant in a new arena built by Anschutz and Roski. Currently, the Kings are tenants of Buss at the Forum, which opened in 1967.

Downtown sites eyed

In addition to the Inglewood site, the other possible locations are the area around Union (train) Station and the Convention Center. Both the station and center are on the outskirts of downtown Los Angeles.

A third downtown site, in the Chinatown area, has also been considered but is now on the bottom of the list, said sources.

A pending announcement on a new arena for the Kings and Lakers will put pressure on another Los Angeles professional team - the basketball Clippers - to make a move on a new home. The Clippers now play at another aging facility - the Sports Arena in Exposition Park. The Sports Arena opened in 1959 and is now the oldest home of a National Basketball Association team.

Clippers owner Donald Sterling, another local real estate developer, has said he wants a new arena and in recent years has scheduled some of the team's home games at the two-year-old Pond of Anaheim in Orange County.

The possibility of a new arena for the Kings and Lakers has been talked about for at least the past two years. Various sites have been discussed but now that the new owners of the Kings Anschutz and Roski - have settled in, sources said, the two are anxious to move ahead with a new facility. (The two bought the team last September for $114 million.)

Seek to boost attendance

In addition, the two want to be able to use a new facility to rejuvenate ticket sales for a team that has slipped into mediocrity the last two seasons, the sources said.

According to Salata, the planned new facility will be much more than an indoor sports arena. The arena will have a seating capacity of about 20,000 and will include dozens of enclosed luxury boxes for high rollers. The facility will also include what are known as club seats, which are fancier versions of traditional stadium seats.

But the facility could also include many high-tech amenities that will make it an "interactive" experience between fans and the team, said Salata. One possibility is that every one or two seats would boast a monitor for fans to follow the game or call up information about an individual player. Seats could also come with audio jacks for fans to follow the game, said Salata.

In addition to the sports facility, the arena could include a retail/entertainment center. The center could be built into the stadium or attached to the building.

"We want to make this a place that people will flock to for reasons other than a Kings game or other big event like a concert. If you think of Universal CityWalk and what that is like, then you have an idea of what we're thinking about," said Salata.