Developers Claim 2 Cities Wooing Arena : Interest in Stalled Santa Ana Westdome Brewing, Partners Say

Two days after the Santa Ana City Council voted to halt plans for a Westdome arena downtown, the project’s developers said they have been contacted by two county cities interested in the sports arena project.

Developers Robert Osbrink and Allan Durkovic would not identify the cities. Officials in Anaheim and Irvine, both potential competitors, said their cities are not the ones involved.

Durkovic said his four-man Westdome Partnership hopes to continue to work with Santa Ana to find another site there. “Basically, it’s not even conversations,” he said of the calls from other cities. “They’re calling us and we’re saying: ‘Let us assess the ramifications of what’s happened first.’ ”

The Santa Ana council voted Monday to eliminate the downtown site from consideration for the project and directed City Manager Robert C. Bobb to begin working with the partners to find another location. In addition, the city will try to determine whether a $40-million, tax-exempt bond issue that had been earmarked for the downtown site can be used elsewhere.

An IRS official said Tuesday that it is doubtful that the bonds can be transferred because tax laws require that public hearings be held with a specific developer, site and use determined. “If (the change) was a substantial deviation, the public hearing would probably be invalid and the bonds might be rendered taxable,” the official said.

Anaheim Assistant City Manager Ronald Bates said the loss of bond financing would make it difficult to pay for the project, but he stressed that Anaheim wasn’t out of the running for a conventionally financed arena. “We think it’s the logical place for an arena,” he said, adding that it would be up to the developers to contact Anaheim to discuss the project.

Paul Brady Jr., assistant city manager in Irvine, said city officials would not call the Westdome developers first, although Irvine officials have discussed such a project in the past. “But we’re not going out and wooing anybody for an arena,” he said.

Some Santa Ana council members suggested that competitors might step in and try to take over the project. “I can almost hear the wings of vultures from other cities,” Vice Mayor P. Lee Johnson said before Monday’s vote.

Said Osbrink: “We’re going to build a sports arena that’s going to be successful in Orange County. And our first choice is Santa Ana.”

He said most of the plans for the downtown site could be used at another location and added that the partners stand to lose “hundreds of thousands” of dollars if their effort fails. He said that he, Durkovic and a third partner, Donald Oliphant, would attend the NBA All-Star Game Feb. 9 to lobby professional basketball owners to move to Orange County.