Just a mile from SoFi Stadium, a part of downtown Inglewood is eerily quiet. The historic Market Street corridor, once a bustling hub for Black-owned businesses and a center of commerce dating back to the early 20th century, is now marked by boarded-up storefronts and boarded-up buildings.
Structures standing since the 1940s sit lonely and abandoned, including the iconic Fox Theater, which closed nearly 40 years ago.
“It's like a ghost town,” said Allison Simon, owner of Black Being, a nonprofit yoga studio on neighboring Queen Street.
It's been nearly six years since the opening of SoFi Stadium, located just under a mile from Market Street. Two adjacent venues, YouTube Theater and Intuit Dome, opened in 2021 and 2024, respectively, joining the Kia Forum, which reopened after major renovations in 2014. The sports and entertainment corridor along Prairie Avenue has become a major economic driver for the city of Inglewood, with SoFi Stadium raking in more than $175 million in revenue and attracting 1 million visitors in 2023 alone, according to Billboard.
And yet, most nights, downtown Inglewood is quiet and inactive. While some long-standing businesses have managed to attract regular customers to the otherwise empty street, many others have closed due to the rent increases and expropriation to make way for planned transit centers.
Market Street, once the thriving core of downtown Inglewood, is marked with “For Lease” signs and boarded-up buildings.
(Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Times)
But now, a transformation for Market Street is becoming urgent, as Inglewood will host Los Angeles' World Cup games in June, Super Bowl LXI in 2027 and the Olympic Games in 2028. The city has launched an $8.5 million state grant program to help revitalize the corridor in hopes of attracting more visitors to Market Street ahead of major events.
“The purpose is for Market Street, which used to be the center of Inglewood, to regain its shine and attractiveness,” Inglewood Mayor James T. Butts said in an interview. “We want it to be Wall Street, Third Street, Old Town, Pasadena.”
The city will give 16 restaurants and nearly 20 other businesses grants of up to $250,000 each for exterior and interior renovations.
Terry Dulan, owner of Dulan's Soul Food Kitchen on Manchester Boulevard, said he began noticing a significant drop in business in Market after the Lakers left the Forum for Staples Center in 1999. The decline only worsened in the years that followed, particularly after the Hollywood Park racetrack closed in 2013.
“All these years we've been waiting for Market Street to become more viable,” Dulan said. “We hope that [the program] “It helps make businesses more attractive to out-of-town guests.”
Open since 1999, Dulan's Soul Food Kitchen is located near the center of Market Street on E. Manchester Boulevard.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
The grant was awarded through Inglewood's Market Street Target Program which launched last June, with the goal of renovating businesses' facades and adding more parking, outdoor seating, pedestrian lighting and improved landscaping. The corridor also lies just within the southwest boundaries of the new Black Cultural District, which covers a large swath of southern Los Angeles.
Seven restaurants will receive up to $250,000 each: Little Belize, Randy's Donuts and Chinese, Keokia's Kitchen, Dulan's Soul Food Kitchen, Wood Urban Kitchen and Rosalie's Caribbean Cuisine. Nine more restaurants have been approved for funding pending final documents.
The project is a sign of hope for business owners who remember what Market Street once was. However, despite promising development, a number of other restaurants and businesses have been left out, demonstrating deeper challenges for the corridor in the long term.
“The gentrification of Market Street is already occurring through the closure of existing businesses,” said Allen Frimpong, co-founder of ZEAL Co-op, a creative arts cooperative for Black artists.
Dulan's Soul Food Kitchen, a long-standing family-owned Inglewood establishment with an additional location on Century Boulevard, plans to use the grant to combine its kitchen, dining room and event spaces into one seamless space.
“I hope that maybe this will help change the situation and we can have more traffic on the block and get more businesses open and it becomes a cultural area that you can visit, that is not in the sports complex,” Dulan said.
Melissa Stoudamire, owner of Toast & Jam (formerly Rusty Pot Cafe), is scheduled to receive a grant. She plans to use the money to rebrand the restaurant with a “New York street cafe” aesthetic. “I think it will also be an opportunity to make… a little bit more of an elevated experience for customers after so many years,” Stoudamire said.
Some businesses on Market Street were unable to obtain grants because they were ineligible; others were rejected due to “overwhelming interest.”
Simon, the owner of the yoga studio, submitted all her paperwork in June but was rejected in November after the city said it would focus on businesses solely on Market Street.
Simon was hoping to renovate a room in his yoga studio, which he uses for events. Without those funds, Simon decided not to move forward with the renovations. “I'm afraid to invest more money in a building that may not be here,” he said. “I don't really have the confidence of the city right now that it's worth it.”
Amanda-Jane Thomas opened Sip & Sonder coffee shop with co-owner Shanita Nicholas on Market Street in 2019 and was forced to close in December 2025. She applied for the grant but was rejected, saying there could have been more transparency around the project's timeline, process, criteria and guidelines.
Despite serving as a vital third space for downtown Inglewood, Sip & Sonder was forced to permanently close its Market Street location.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Babette Davis, owner of Stuff I Eat, said the restaurant was not eligible for the grant because it did not have a lease. The vegan restaurant that has been a local staple on Market Street for nearly 20 years will close on April 26, after a corporation purchased the building and raised the rent. 110 N. Market St. LLC did not respond to requests for comment.
“This came pretty much out of nowhere,” Davis said. “We were never able to get a lease with them, and they just decided they wanted to raise the rent astronomically and we couldn't afford it.”
Since opening at 114 N. Market St. in 2008, Davis said his building “has felt like home.”
“The love that we shared with each other and the community, we will definitely miss it,” Davis said.
In addition to rising rents, lack of property maintenance has been a concern for some business owners. Simon said when he first got his building he had to fix the electrical and plumbing systems.
“Going into a business and then needing to fix the building too… It's like, how can anyone afford that?” said Simon.
Frimpong, co-founder of the Downtown Inglewood Business Assn., said the city needs to establish a system to mitigate rent increases and lack of code enforcement, as well as inform small business owners of their rights when renting property.
As part of the grant agreement, landlords must sign a rent increase protection form that limits rent increases to 5% for three years, with the goal of protecting businesses from rent increases after renovations.
As part of Inglewood Transit Connector Plan To improve mobility, the city also plans to develop two transit hubs to connect Market Street to entertainment venues. These centers would include parking structures, bus rotations, transit services, and pick-up and drop-off areas.
The city plans demolish a shopping center at Market Street and Florence Avenue to build one of the mobility centers. Some businesses will receive relocation funds, including Randy's Donuts and Chinese.
Mayor Butts said improvement efforts on Market Street aim to make the entire city more walkable and pedestrian-friendly. “This is just another gradual step on the path to [the] resurgence of Inglewood,” Butts said.
