News of the Arroyo


Title:

Rose Bowl Takes Latest Step to Attract the NFL

Subtitle:

Date:

2003-03-07

Summary:

March 7 -- The RBOC moves ahead on its NFL bid, authorizing $150,000 for an environmental impact report on the program.

Author:

Sam Farmer

Publication:

Los Angeles Times

Content:

Committee authorizes funds for environmental impact report to study
total stadium renovation.

Porfirio Frausto, a member of the Rose Bowl Operating Committee, wore
an NFL logo pin on his lapel Thursday. It was the first time he wore
it since buying it at the Super Bowl a decade ago.

\"Now\'s the time,\" said Frausto, a past president of the
committee. \"We said a long time ago that we\'d get one at-bat with the
NFL, one pitch. No strikeouts. Just one pitch. Now we\'re getting it.\"

Inch by inch, Rose Bowl officials are doing what they can to make
their stadium NFL-ready, even though they concede a long string of
hurdles must be cleared to adequately prepare the 81-year-old venue.

The RBOC on Thursday night agreed to allocate the approximately
$150,000 necessary to conduct an environmental impact report that
would study a total stadium renovation that probably would cost at
least $400 million. The allocation must also be approved by the
Pasadena City Council.

\"We\'re doing what we can to keep the Rose Bowl a viable part of the
community,\" said Bill Thomson, chairman of the stadium\'s tenant-
search committee and part of a Pasadena contingent that met Tuesday
in Palm Beach, Fla., with a collection of NFL owners. That Rose Bowl
group also included investment banker John Moag, Rose Bowl General
Manager Darryl Dunn, City Councilman Steve Madison and Dennis Wellner
of the architectural firm HOK.

\"We made a presentation to let them know where we are in our
process,\" Thomson said. \"Our presentation was well received, and I
think they continue to see the Rose Bowl as a viable possibility.\"

The plan is still in the early stages, Dunn said, and the group is
continually working on devising a financing plan -- one that won\'t
dip into the general fund -- and weighty considerations such as
freeway access, parking, as well as neighborhood and historic-
preservation issues.

Instead of trying to court an individual NFL team, the approach of
the Rose Bowl group is to cater to the requests of the league, then
allow the league to decide what team might relocate there and who the
principal investors might be.

Thomson said the renovation process would require between one and two
years, and ideally would be timed so that only one Rose Bowl game
would take place elsewhere. He said a best-case scenario is a new
stadium would be ready for the 2006 season.

\"We certainly wouldn\'t want to disrupt the Tournament of Roses and
the Rose Bowl game any more than would be absolutely necessary,\" he
said. \"We would try to begin the renovation work on a Jan. 2 or Jan.
5 or whenever, and then try to have it completed so they could play
not the following January but the one thereafter.\"

He didn\'t rule out the possibility that, if the renovation came to
fruition, the Rose Bowl game might be played in Dodger Stadium if the
Pasadena stadium was under construction. But he added: \"It\'s a
baseball stadium, and I just don\'t know what the tournament or the
conference might prefer.\"

In a brief presentation Thursday, Dunn showed a series of slides of
the Orange Bowl, which the Pasadena group visited. That stadium is in
serious disrepair, in large part because the city of Miami opted not
to pay for renovations when then-Dolphin owner Joe Robbie wanted it
upgraded for his team.

\"We don\'t want to learn from ourselves, we want to learn from
others,\" Dunn said. \"What happened to Miami we feel we have a chance
to prevent happening to us.\"

Later, RBOC member Robert Monk succinctly summed up the position of
those angling to put an NFL team in the Rose Bowl: \"We don\'t want a
rust bucket here.\"


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