Critics of Coliseum Tear-Down Line Up : Raiders: Preservationists and even a few politicians believe that remodeling the old stadium is a better idea. But team owner Al Davis is apparently standing fast on demands for a new facility.

At 87, Arnold Eddy, manager of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum during the 1932 Olympic Games and a Coliseum commissioner in the 1960s and ‘70s, is in no mood to tear down the old stadium and build a new one.

“We use the Coliseum for more than football,” Eddy said last week. “It should be left as it is. It’s a people’s place. I don’t know why we need luxury boxes and club seats. And if we have to pay the Raiders to play football there, forget it.”

Jim Patton, who has cheered three pro football teams--the Los Angeles Rams, the Express and the Raiders--at the Coliseum over the last 25 years--is just as firm in rejecting reconstruction, no matter that Raiders owner Al Davis insists on a new stadium to keep his team in Los Angeles.

“No matter whether the construction funds come out of taxes or from higher prices for seats or hot dogs, the public is going to pay for it,” predicted Patton, a retired transportation executive. “It has nice seats now, and this is a historic site now. We should all be up in arms against this.”

It’s not just the nostalgic who are dubious of a proposed $140-million overhaul of the 67-year-old Coliseum--a plan, conceived to satisfy Davis, that would add 200 luxury boxes and up to 15,000 club seats at prices beyond the means of the average fan while reducing the stadium’s capacity by 20,000 and retaining only the eastern peristyle end of its historic shell.

Indeed, the view seems to be emerging among environmental organizations, historic preservationists and even a few politicians that remodeling the Coliseum from within--rather than tearing it down and rebuilding it--is a better course.

Opponents of a new stadium are hardly powerless. They may have the clout to delay reconstruction by prolonging environmental impact reports, state agency consultations, and legislative action on the lease extensions required to secure the project’s financing.

USC, the Coliseum’s other principal tenant, is privately expressing reservations. The university, officials say, would prefer a less profound remodeling, one that would not break down the present facade and would keep much of the traditional seating that has reliably financed not only USC football but all of the university’s other athletic programs as well.

USC has already won assurances that any new stadium would be expandable for the school’s big games with UCLA and Notre Dame.

Even Mayor Tom Bradley has stated that whatever is done, he hopes to see vital historic elements of the 92,655-seat stadium--the only site of two modern Olympic Games--preserved. The mayor, said his deputy, Mark Fabiani, “loves the Coliseum,” where he personally viewed both the 1932 and 1984 Olympics.

Last week, there were signs that the would-be rebuilders were getting the point. Peter Luukko, the Coliseum general manager and an employee of Spectacor Management Group, the lead private entrepreneur in the proposed reconstruction, said he would confer with members of the Los Angeles Conservancy, a group that has taken a stand against the demolition, to see if common ground could be found between them.

Luukko did not rule out trying to renovate the Coliseum within the existing shell. “We’re interested in talking to everyone and learning their concerns,” he said. “We want to get together with everybody and then build a stadium that will suit everybody.”

He emphasized, however, that a structure with the revenue potential afforded by mid-level boxes and club seating would be essential in order to secure financing to do any renovation. “I don’t know if that can be done within the existing wall structure,” he said.

Davis, however, gave a powerful signal at midweek that he is interested only in demolition and reconstruction.

Upon hearing that Fabiani was suggesting that a remodeling of the Coliseum rather than its demolition and reconstruction was “a very serious possibility”--and that Fabiani was saying that the mayor had conveyed such an idea to Davis in private conversations--Davis immediately telephoned Bradley and told him that a remodeling was not acceptable if he is to keep the team in Los Angeles.

Later, describing the phone call in an interview, Bradley denied he had previously so much as discussed the remodeling idea with Davis. The mayor noted that no schematic drawings or architectural plans have yet been unveiled for rebuilding the stadium, and Bradley said he could not tell what plan he might endorse until he sees them.

The fact that Davis would so quickly and decisively try to quash the remodeling option may be an indication that he remains quite interested in Los Angeles’ offers and is in no hurry to move the team to either Sacramento or Oakland, despite suggestions up north that his decision on whether to move is imminent.

Some businessmen in the Coliseum neighborhood agree strongly with Davis that the facility ought to be demolished and rebuilt. Bob O’Bradovich, owner of Julie’s restaurant, calls the stadium “antiquated.”

“It’s a lousy stadium, one of the worst in the country as far as football stadiums go,” O’Bradovich asserted last week. “And if the Raiders leave, USC will ultimately move as well, and it won’t be long before vandals will start painting graffiti on the walls.”

Despite such sentiments, however, there appears to be little question that a remodeling would be more palatable to Coliseum defenders--the environmentalists, preservationists and fans with memories--and therefore easier for Los Angeles authorities to bring about in a reasonable time.

Interviews in the last two weeks show, in fact, that many people who in the past have strongly opposed any changes to the Coliseum concede now that the facility probably cannot be kept in its present state and are willing to accept at least some remodeling.

For instance, John Argue, president of the Southern California Committee for the Olympic Games, a group that hopes to see the stadium used for track and field at a third Los Angeles Olympics as early as 2004, said last week he would support remodeling if it were in the best interest of the Coliseum.

“Somehow, I think we’ll cope with a stadium for the Olympics when the times comes,” he said. “The opening ceremonies we could put elsewhere. At the Coliseum, we would prefer that they include a capability for a track and field facility in any changes they make. So far, I’ve heard that they will do that. If I sound kind of moderate on the prospect of remodeling, I guess I am.”

Similar willingness to support change at the Coliseum was expressed by Andrew Strenk, a past president of Southern California Olympians, an organization of former Olympic athletes that several years ago took a stand against doing anything to the 1984 Olympic track around the football field.

“I’m enough in business these days to recognize that a structure without financial viability cannot be maintained,” Strenk said. “But this is a very special stadium. It’s the only one to host two of the modern Olympic Games. There are relatively few stadiums of this vintage around. It’s very distinctive looking.

“I would find it sad and tragic if the entire Coliseum were demolished and a new stadium constructed that would look like every other. . . . But if we end up having no tenants in it except for occasional rock concerts and revival meetings, I’m not sure we should retain it just to look at it,” he said. “The middle course would be to maintain the present shell, but put in sky boxes. That might be a reasonable compromise.”

Joe Cerrell, a former Coliseum commissioner, concurs.

“I think we can remodel it, we can renovate it, we can restore it,” he says of the stadium. “I just don’t know why we have to tear it down. I’m not trying to stand in the way of progress when I say that, but I just returned from Eastern Europe, and you see these churches and buildings hundreds of years old. We get excited when we see something 20, 25 years old in Los Angeles, and I just don’t think it’s necessary to destroy the Coliseum.”

The Los Angeles Conservancy, adopting a resolution recently on the Coliseum, opposed demolition. But at the same time it did not rule out eventual support of remodeling.

“The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum is one of only two buildings in Los Angeles designated as national historic landmarks, the highest recognition a historic building can receive in the United States,” the resolution declared, “and the Los Angeles Conservancy opposes demolition of this important landmark and proposes that the Coliseum be preserved and adapted for continued use in a manner consistent with its distinctive architecture and past role in the city and the nation.”

In any event, Conservancy Executive Director Jay Rounds said, “We will continue to insist on the highest level of environmental review of the proposed project, including, as required under state environmental laws, the study of alternatives to the proposed project.”

Richard Riordan, outgoing president of the Coliseum Commission, remarked last week that “Everybody’s getting in the game, and all of a sudden, with many of these people, remodeling (rather than demolition) becomes the agenda.

“It’s not the agenda yet,” he said. “I don’t think it’s a terrible idea. I think Los Angeles deserves the best state-of-the-art stadium and not some scaled-down version. However, I’m a great believer in the art of the possible, and if all the parties will go along with the scaled-down version, I’d do my best to make it work.”