Way Cleared for Irwindale to Build Raider Stadium

After 17 months of court stays, the city of Irwindale was freed Friday to proceed with final arrangements for construction of its proposed Los Angeles Raiders football stadium.

Superior Court Judge Charles E. Jones lifted the last of the stays, formally finding that Irwindale has “prepared, certified and filed” an environmental impact report for the 62,000-seat stadium project as required under state law.

“I’m very pleased,” said Kenneth L. Adams, the city’s attorney in the matter. “The Raiders and the city can now move forward swiftly to consummate the project.”

A Raiders spokeswoman said team owner Al Davis was traveling and not immediately available for comment.

Bruce Tepper, an attorney for Los Angeles City Councilman Ernani Bernardi, who sued in an attempt to block the Raiders’ move to Irwindale and obtained the stay, said Friday that future legal action could still impede the project. He noted that aspects of his lawsuit are still being heard in the state Court of Appeal.

Adams said he expects “definite progress” on finalizing plans for the stadium by the end of March. But major hurdles remain before it can be built.

First, the city and the Raiders must conclude a final contract, which may differ in important respects from the initial memorandum of agreement under which the Raiders agreed in 1987 to move from the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum to the San Gabriel Valley city.

Then, financing must be secured for the estimated $150-million project at a time of rising interest rates and continuing uncertainty about the ultimate revenue the stadium would produce.

People familiar with the situation have reported in recent weeks that city officials and the Raiders have discussed changing the site of the stadium from a gravel pit west of the Irwindale Avenue exit on the north side of the Foothill Freeway to a gravel pit about a mile away, south of Live Oak Avenue and west of the San Gabriel River Freeway.

This would take the stadium parking away from land controlled by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Los Angeles County and, according to the hopes of Irwindale officials, save Irwindale time in getting their approval and save more than $30 million in environmental costs.

Irwindale City Manager Charles Martin, Adams and other city representatives met in late January with Davis to discuss obtaining private land at the alternative site.

The Live Oak Avenue site is mentioned as a possibility in the environmental impact report, so a new one would presumably not be necessary.

One of the sources said that part of the deal might be to give Davis development rights on land north of Arrow Highway near the alternative site that would make him amenable to paying a higher rent on the stadium, thus facilitating its financing.

Adams, said, however, that no agreement has been reached either to change the stadium site or to give Davis any development rights, and he declined to discuss details of the January meeting.

Search for Financing

One business group that has been active in trying to secure financing for the stadium project has been Chilton & O’Connor of Century City.

One of its associates, Ken Caricio, the former city manager of Duarte, said recently, “Irwindale asked us a long time ago to look at some things, and we’ve provided some information. But at this time, we don’t have any agreement.”

In another development Friday, the president of the Coliseum Commission, Richard Riordan, said that the Raiders have now paid $600,000 of the $970,000 they owe in rent for use of the Coliseum during the 1988 season. Riordan said that the commission, believing that the team will pay the rest in two or three months, has dropped a rent-recovery suit it filed against the Raiders on Jan. 12.

According to the Raiders’ contract with the Coliseum, which runs through the 1991 season, the team is obligated to pay its rent in installments 10 days after each game.

However, according to Coliseum officials, the team has consistently been late in paying the rent, and this past season did not pay at all during the fall, despite frequent demands that it do so.