Lavern Upton isn’t ready to move.
For 15 years, the Inglewood local has been styling hair in a cozy, pink-walled salon in the shopping center at Market Street and Florence Avenue. But soon, Upton and all of her neighboring businesses will have to leave.
The city plans to take over and bulldoze the shopping center — home to more than 20 businesses from restaurants to a jeweler— through eminent domain to make way for one hub of a new shuttle bus system connecting the nearby Metro K Line station to Inglewood’s stadium district.
“They’re upending my livelihood,” Upton said while on a break at Inglewood Beauty Salon.
Mayor James Butts told The LA Local the Inglewood Transit Connector project is for the greater good of the city. Still, he said, city officials have empathy for the businesses that are being displaced.
“The city feels for the people that don’t want to relocate,” Butts said.
Inglewood has recently redoubled efforts to boost the flagging Market Street commercial corridor, one link in a chain of rapid redevelopment that started when the city approved the construction of SoFi Stadium in 2015.
Along with the shuttle bus system, the city is putting $8.5 million into streetscape improvements and business renovation grants along Market Street.
It’s not clear exactly when the shopping center will be shut down. Multiple business owners told The LA Local they expect to be out this fall. Sanjeev Shah, an engineer for the transit connector project, wrote in a February LA Superior Court filing that the city needs to take over the land on Oct. 1 and start construction by Oct. 21 in order to wrap up in time for the 2028 Olympics.
Butts, though, said he did not know the exact timeline for the shopping center’s demise, and neither the city’s development services director nor a project consultant responded to inquiries about the takeover date.
Already, several of the shopping center storefronts appear empty and papered over. There are still businesses hanging on, including Red’s Flavor Table and House of Tacos. Upton is also trying to stick around as long as she can, even though she’s found another, more expensive, salon to relocate that’s about five minutes away.
“I was trying to get out of here in five years,” said Upton, who has an eye on retirement. “Now, I don’t know.”
The city plans to build a parking structure and bus loop
The Inglewood City Council set eminent domain proceedings in motion in February covering eight different parcels and this summer won court orders to take over parts of the property as early as October. The city budgeted $125 million for purchase costs and to help businesses relocate.
In place of the Market Street shopping center, the city plans to build a parking structure and a bus loop with bus bays that will pump concert and game attendees south to SoFi Stadium. The complex will take up almost an entire city block, according to project designs.
The project also calls for two more shuttle hubs at La Brea Avenue and Hillcrest Boulevard and at Hawthorne Boulevard and 111th Street, as well as a second bus route running north to the stadium from Lennox.
The Inglewood Transit Connector has been in the works since 2018, first envisioned as an automated rail line. The city and Metro first teamed up to pitch a $2 billion automated rail line, pulling in a $1 billion federal grant.
But then the project hit a wall. U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters came out against the automated people mover in 2024, calling it “ridiculous” in an interview with the LA Times and saying she’d do whatever she could to stop it. Waters did not return an interview request for this story.
Butts told The LA Local this week that the billion-dollar federal grant was frozen, though the city hopes to eventually apply for the funds again.
As the project stalled last year, and the Olympics loomed, the city pivoted to a shuttle bus network. Planners say they want to bring the automated rail line back in the indeterminate future.
City officials say the transit connector will help manage visitors
City officials tout the project as a way to manage the flood of visitors on event days while boosting foot traffic to businesses further down Market Street.
Julia Walker, a hair stylist who works alongside Upton at the Inglewood Beauty Salon, said she wants something to be done to alleviate the game day crowds that sometimes spill into residential neighborhoods.
Still, she doesn’t want to see the shopping center disappear.
“What’s going to be missed is this platform,” she said.
Unlike Upton, Walker hasn’t yet found a new place, and she’s not the only one. The Martin family, owners of Fiesta Martin Bar & Grill and Inglewood Pedicab, said they’ve been working with the city on a relocation plan but haven’t yet locked in new digs for the five different spaces they rent at the shopping center.
“If you look at it personally, it’s going to affect our businesses, it’s going to affect the people that work with us,” Christian Martin said. “We try to see the best in the future of this city. We’re trying to find a happy medium.”
Butts said the city is making every effort to help businesses relocate.
Click here for more details on the Inglewood Transit Connector.
