Westdome Looked Like a Winner Too

Item: A $37-million bond sale is approved to build an indoor arena to lure a professional basketball team to Santa Ana.

Item: Developers and Anaheim city officials announced plans for a $40-million, 20,000-seat arena to attract a professional basketball team.

Sounds like today’s headlines. But this news is four years old and both of those ambitious efforts fell flat.

Now, the same cities that failed in the mid-1980s are trying again.

However, the price tags have more than doubled. The proposed Santa Ana arena is priced at $75 million. Anaheim’s would cost $94 million.

Another difference is that in the mid-1980s, the National Basketball Assn. was ready to expand.

That opportunity has passed. The NBA bestowed new teams to Orlando, Fla., Charlotte, N.C., Miami and Minneapolis.

Now Santa Ana and Anaheim are positioning themselves for another round of expansion--by the National Hockey League.

There is a familiar obstacle.

“You cannot get a franchise until you get an agreement on an arena,” said Don Oliphant, general partner of Knott’s Berry Farm.

Oliphant and a consortium of Orange County developers failed to put an arena in Santa Ana and in Anaheim. The Westdome project seemed likely to be built--in both cities.

In Santa Ana, opposition from residents killed the plan.

“Some of the councilmen said there was too much pressure,” Oliphant said. “When it came to the final vote, they voted it down.”

One of Oliphant’s partners, Robert Osbrink, put it another way: “Stabbed in the back.”

Oliphant and his partners took their plans to Anaheim. Santa Ana Councilman John Acosta predicted Westdome would run into the same opposition from residents there.

But, Oliphant said, it was the Anaheim council which could not be sold on the plan.

Anaheim Councilman William D. Ehrle said Westdome advocates “just didn’t have the financing put together.”

“It was a nice concept; good people behind it,” Ehrle said. “But when it came time to put together a financing package, they wanted the city to build it all and they would manage it.”

And now Anaheim and Santa Ana are trying anew.

“The people they are dealing with now are certainly larger than our group,” Oliphant said. “Ogden (Corp., which is proposing the Anaheim Arena) could probably write a check to fund the whole thing.”

If an arena can be built in either city, Oliphant feels the community will benefit immeasurably.

“But for that benefit, the city has to take part of the risk,” he said.