Carson Is Not Out of the NFL Picture

The developer who controls a 157-acre toxic landfill in Carson met with the NFL this week and said the league and city still were interested in constructing a football stadium on the site.

“We’re all going to roll up our sleeves on our side to determine what can be done to make this economically feasible,” developer Steve Hopkins said Tuesday, a day after meeting in New York with members of the NFL’s staff and stadium-development team.

It had long been rumored that Carson was on the verge of pulling out of the process, or of being eliminated by the league, because it had fallen so far behind the league’s schedule for the stadium derby.

Each of the other competing sites -- the Coliseum, Anaheim and the Rose Bowl -- is further ahead in the evaluation process.

But Hopkins said significant progress was made this week in bringing the league up to speed on the site. He was part of a six-person Carson contingent that included the city’s mayor and city manager.

The NFL hopes to have enough information on the four sites by late May so that team owners will be able to zero in on a particular stadium plan by then.

“The Carson meetings were productive,” league executive Neil Glat wrote in an e-mail to The Times. “By May, we could be in position to discuss deal specifics.”

Glat noted that Carson’s environmental-impact report would not be finished until the end of the year.

Hopkins said among the league’s concerns was sufficient parking at the site and nearby. The NFL wants about 21,000 parking spots, about 9,000 more than the current site plan allows.