City to Consider Sports Arena Expenditures

The City Council will be asked Tuesday to approve spending more than $6 million for a full-color scoreboard, artwork and other changes as it proceeds with the construction of the city’s sports and entertainment complex.

The request is within the project’s $103-million budget and would allow all 82 luxury suites planned for the arena to be completed when the building opens in September, 1993, Public Works Director Gary Johnson said Friday.

The council consideration is scheduled the day before construction workers are to pour the first concrete into the foundation for the 19,200-seat arena to be built between the Orange Freeway and the Santa Ana River.

The proposed expenditures include $3.3 million in change orders for the project, about $1 million of which would be allocated to finish 32 suites that had not been scheduled for completion until after a professional sports franchise could be secured as an arena tenant.

Los Angeles attorney Neil Papiano has been representing the city in talks about obtaining expansion teams in the National Basketball Assn. and National Hockey League or the possibility of moving franchises to Anaheim.

“I think we’re a whole year away from knowing something on” obtaining a sports franchise, Mayor Fred Hunter said in an interview earlier this week.

Johnson said that the original arena plans had included provisions to complete all 82 luxury suites but that 32 of the boxes were removed from the plans for completion at a later date because officials believed the work could not be done within budget.

He said that after the project was awarded last month to Phoenix-based HuntCor Inc., it was determined that the full number could be finished by the time the arena opens.

Also included in the change orders is $900,000 for the construction of a granite exterior for the arena. The remaining funds requested will be used to upgrade other building features, including landscaping and acoustics.

Although officials have not decided what brand of scoreboard will be obtained, Johnson said that the $2.4-million cost estimate would buy the city a four-sided board with a self-contained control room and an instant-replay screen.

An additional $300,000 was included in the council proposal to pay for undetermined artworks to dress up the sports center.