Super Bowl Means Super Improvements : Tourism: Pasadena officials offered an $8.5 million package that includes a new press box, new club seats and other Rose Bowl renovations in order to secure the game in 1993.

With the securing of the 1993 Super Bowl game, the city must now move full speed ahead with $8.5 million in improvements to the Rose Bowl, officials said.

Completion of a new press box, 1,000 new club seats, a restaurant and Hall of Fame museum were part of the Pasadena bid that secured Super Bowl XXVII, said City Director William Paparian.

“Now the real work begins,” Paparian said. “We’re committed to building the press box and have it ready in time for the 1993 game,” set for Jan. 31.

The city will probably have to pass bonds for the project, but economic feasibility studies have not yet been completed, nor have architectural plans been drawn. The feasibility study will indicate whether Rose Bowl events generate enough money to pay back the bonds or whether a city subsidy will be needed, said City Director Kathryn Nack.

Both directors said the improvements were needed to make the 69-year-old Rose Bowl more competitive with newer stadiums. The 1993 Super Bowl will provide the city with incentive to get the work done faster, they said.

The 1993 game will be the fifth time Pasadena has hosted the National Football League premier game. Bruce Ackerman, executive director of the Pasadena Chamber of Commerce, estimated the 1993 game will bring $150 million to the Los Angeles-area economy from increased business to hotels, restaurants and entertainment and transportation providers.

Nack said about $2 million of that money will benefit the Pasadena economy alone.

Pasadena officials, in cooperation with the Los Angeles Sports Council, had offered the Rose Bowl rent free last year for the game and lost the bid to Phoenix. But when Arizona voters rejected a holiday honoring slain civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the NFL withdrew the game from Phoenix and reopened the bidding process.

Paparian credited the success this year to groundwork laid last year by the city’s negotiating team of City Director William Thomson, Rose Bowl Manager Greg Asbury and then-Deputy City Manager Edward Aghjayan.

But he criticized Mayor Jess Hughston and Director Chris Holden for making the trip to Hawaii where the NFL was meeting this week. “All they did was accumulate mileage on the Jess Hughston frequent flyer club,” Paparian said. “They didn’t do anything. They were not part of the negotiating team and not part of the presentation.”

Hughston, Holden, Thomson, Asbury, City Manager Philip Hawkey and Gail Thompson, Pasadena Convention and Visitors Bureau executive director, all went to Hawaii this week at city expense.