Santa Ana Moving on New Arena : Building Contract Near, But ‘Home Teams’ Uncertain

A proposed $35-million, 18,500-seat sports arena in downtown Santa Ana would be economically viable, according to a report due next week, and city officials and the developer said Thursday that a final construction agreement is expected within 90 days.

While city officials say they hope to lure professional basketball and hockey franchises, their prospects for attracting either are uncertain.

One of the developers said Thursday that preliminary negotiations have taken place with the owner of the National Basketball Assn.’s Milwaukee Bucks, who is trying to sell the team. Efforts to bring the Bucks to Santa Ana have been put on hold, however, while the owner talks with Milwaukee-area officials, who are trying to keep the team from leaving.

Regardless of what happens with the Bucks, a four-member development consortium, called the Gardens Partnership, is pushing to start work on the Garden Arena early next year on the site now occupied by Santa Ana Stadium-Eddie West Field.

Mayor Daniel E. Griset called the project “exciting, not only for the city but for the whole area--if we can get all the pieces together. With this step,” he said, “we can achieve a facility which will be second to none in Orange County.”

Stadium Without a Team

“One way or another I’d expect we’d get a team into an arena like this,” Griset said.

If the Bucks do not move to Santa Ana, the city would find itself in a situation similar to one in Indianapolis when that city built the Hoosier Dome, Griset said. He noted that Indianapolis last year attracted the Colts football franchise to the new stadium from Baltimore.

A feasibility study on the stadium plan, conducted for the developers by Harrison Price Co., Los Angeles marketing analysts, has come out strongly in favor of the project.

“Clearly the project will contribute significantly, with substantial benefits to the local economy, most of which will accrue to the City of Santa Ana and Orange County,” the report says. It says the arena would bring increased retail sales and more jobs, as well as “heightened community prestige and national exposure.”

The feasibility report is under review by the city’s private economists, the Keyser Marston Co. That review, scheduled to be finished next week, looks favorably on the Harrison Price study, City Manager Robert C. Bobb said.

Bobb said the developer’s representatives and city officials have been meeting weekly for several weeks to assess the potential impact of the project and to determine what facilities and services the city would provide.

“Our goal is to close the negotiations within 90 days,” Bobb said. “It will either be ‘go’ or ‘no go,’ but it appears quite promising at this point.”

The city’s biggest cost would be that of constructing a parking garage for 7,000 cars, Bobb said. Construction costs and other measures could initially cost as much as $20 million, he said, but the benefits the city would reap would make that money well spent.

Meanwhile, he said, the city is considering a number of sites to “duplicate” Santa Ana Stadium but would not disclose the locations. Santa Ana Stadium is considered by many to be the finest football stadium in Orange County.

Bobb and Rex Swanson, deputy city manager, plan to visit Tacoma, Wash., in April to tour the Tacoma Dome and discuss the impact that arena has had on the Pacific Northwest city. The Garden Arena would be similar to the Tacoma Dome, officials said. Tacoma does not have a professional basketball or hockey franchise, but the dome is used by the Tacoma Stars indoor soccer team.

Allan Durkovich, an Orange County real estate developer and one of the partners in the Garden Arena project, agreed with Bobb that the negotiations are “proceeding smoothly.”

Milwaukee Bucks Talks

Durkovich also said the Gardens Partnership has discussed the purchase of the Milwaukee Bucks with the team’s owner, Jim Fitzgerald, who announced in February that the team is up for sale. Further talks won’t be scheduled, however, until Fitzgerald completes discussions with Milwaukee city officials and investors who might be interested in buying the team, Durkovich said.

Fitzgerald and the Gardens Partnership have agreed that “nothing will happen between the parties until he takes care of business in the Milwaukee area,” Durkovich said. “Mr. Fitzgerald has a feeling of obligation to Milwaukee and to the people of that city,” he added.

Fitzgerald, who is seeking about $25 million for the franchise, is scheduled to meet with Milwaukee officials early next week, a spokeswoman in Wisconsin said.

“We want very much for someone in Milwaukee . . . to buy the Bucks,” Fitzgerald said when he disclosed plans to sell the team. He also said he believes that a larger arena than Milwaukee’s 11,000-seat facility is a “must” if the team should expect to make it in the Wisconsin city.

National Basketball Assn. officials were unavailable for comment Thursday, but members of the Gardens Partnership have flown to New York a number of times to discuss moving a team to Santa Ana or expanding the league.

Robyn Simpson, an economic development specialist on the city’s negotiating team, said the Harrison Price marketing study and others show Orange County as “a very favorable market for the arena site, one that could support a third (NBA) team.”

Third-Team Resistance

A potential hurdle, however, is that one of the teams already in Los Angeles--the Lakers or the Clippers--or the NBA itself may resist any effort to establish a third team in the area. The Clippers moved from San Diego to Los Angeles last year over the league’s objections, and the league later filed a $25-million suit against the club.

Ed Tucker, a spokesman for the Lakers, acknowledged Thursday that Southern California would be a “logical place” for a new franchise but said the Clippers’ move “probably put a damper on further expansion in the area.”

Still, he said, “every time the (NBA) owners have a meeting, they talk about expansion.”

Durkovich said talks between the Garden Partnership and Fitzgerald are a result of the “coincidental timing of our project and his timing in announcing the sale.”

He said the development group hopes to meet with Fitzgerald in the near future, but no meeting has yet been scheduled.

The basketball team that eventually moves into the arena “could very well wind up being another franchise or a new franchise,” he said. Because negotiations with the city are not final, the partnership is “not really in the position to negotiate (with the NBA) at this time,” he said.

Bobb said that he, too, has spoken with Fitzgerald on the telephone a number of times and that the two have discussed the Bucks’ moving to Santa Ana. “We are ready, at the drop of a hat, to begin negotiating,” he said.

Hockey Team Sought

Bobb said the city has also begun seeking a professional hockey team.

If all goes as planned, construction of the arena could begin early next year with a projected opening in 1987 or 1988, Durkovich said. The arena would seat 20,000 for concerts and could also be used for circuses and shows such as the Ice Capades.

Durkovich’s partners--architect Ronald McMahon, president of McMahon Partnership; Don Oliphant, a general partner of Knott’s Berry Farm, and Robert Osbrink, senior director of sales and marketing for the Irvine Co.--were unavailable for comment Thursday.

If the NBA expands to Santa Ana or a team moves to the city, it would be Orange County’s third major sports franchise. At present, the Los Angeles Rams and the California Angels play their home games in Anaheim Stadium.