News of the Arroyo


Title:

Rose Bowl's redesign will be revealed today

Subtitle:

Date:

2003-04-22

Summary:

April 22, 2003 - Here's the view from San Diego of the new Rose Bowl plans.

Author:

Matt Krasnowski and David Zahniser

Publication:

San Diego Union-Tribune

Content:

COPLEY NEWS SERVICE

LOS ANGELES – Rose Bowl officials today will unveil plans to redesign the 81-year-old stadium – hoping that by preserving their past, they will create a future home for an NFL team.

The plan includes cutting capacity of the 92,000-seat Pasadena venue by roughly one-third, adding more enclosed suites for corporate patrons and building an underground parking structure – all moves to please the NFL.

But stadium officials also are trying to win over the city\'s historic preservationists, keep the facility\'s landmark status and avoid a protracted political battle.

\"It\'s designed to show the community as well as the public at large what a renovated Rose Bowl would look like that would essentially meet NFL standards,\" said former Pasadena mayor Bill Thomson, who serves on the Rose Bowl Operating Co., which oversees operation of the city-owned stadium. \"(It will) be a state-of-the-art stadium and yet preserve the landmark status and prestige of the Rose Bowl.\"

Preservationists have put a high priority on preserving the Rose Bowl\'s shallow, or elliptical, shape. To achieve that goal, architects with the leading stadium design company HOK have come up with a plan that would mimic the proportions of the current stadium.

Some who have reviewed the plan say it is significantly different from new NFL venues, where the rows of seats are steeply pitched.

The Rose Bowl effort is one in a series of attempts to bring the NFL back to the Los Angeles area – the nation\'s second-largest media market – since the Raiders and Rams left the region after the 1994 season. Los Angeles lost out to Houston in bidding for an expansion franchise in 1999, and a proposal to build a new stadium in downtown Los Angeles quickly sank last year.

The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum still is touting itself as a possible NFL venue and movie producer Michael Ovitz has tried to resurrect a stadium proposal in Carson.

Rose Bowl officials have courted NFL brass for about a year and hired Maryland-based sports broker John Moag, who helped engineer the Cleveland Browns\' move to Baltimore, to lead the Pasadena effort.

While NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue and other top league officials have visited the Rose Bowl in recent months, no one from the league is expected at today\'s unveiling.

Pasadena officials intend to have a financial plan ready before NFL owners meet in late May to discuss the possibility of bringing a team to the Rose Bowl, Thomson said.

The renovation could be financed in part by expanding the number of luxury skyboxes at the stadium and by creating \"personal seat licenses\" – asking season ticket holders to pay extra for the option to buy future seasons worth of tickets in the same location, Rose Bowl officials said.

Also on the table is the sale of corporate naming rights to the football field itself, a move that would generate revenue while preserving the Rose Bowl name.

Because Pasadena refuses to commit taxpayer funds toward a new stadium, the NFL and a new team would need to raise the money necessary to make the project happen, Thomson said.

\"(NFL financing) would be unusual,\" Thomson said. \"But I think they realize that if they\'re going to come into the Southern California market, they\'re going to have to differ drastically from their usual financial approach to this.\"

What won\'t be mentioned today, Thomson said, is the precise cost of the redesign or the financing structure that would make an NFL stadium possible. Some critics have questioned whether a historically sensitive remodel could cause the price tag to go well above the $450 million frequently mentioned.

City officials are banking on the NFL to revive a stadium that is already on financially shaky ground. The Rose Bowl already has lost a Major League Soccer franchise to another stadium in Los Angeles County. If another football stadium is built in Southern California, the Rose Bowl may lose its most consistent tenant, the UCLA football team, and even its namesake New Year\'s Day college classic.

\"If people don\'t invest a significant chunk of money into (the Rose Bowl) and make it a viable venue on a going-forward basis, it will fall into decrepitude,\" said William Crowfoot, a former Pasadena councilman. \"And then the city will have a 100,000-seat white elephant sitting in an incredibly prime area of the city.\"

Redesign backers likely will have to run a gantlet of environmentalists, historic preservationists and neighborhood groups – each with a reputation for filing lawsuits that take years to resolve.

So far, Rose Bowl officials already have shown the design to a panel convened by Sue Mossman, executive director of Pasadena Heritage, the city\'s influential preservation group. Although she refused to comment on the plans until after they are made public, Mossman argued that her group would insist that a renovation stay in keeping with the stadium\'s status as a national landmark.



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