Santa Ana Won’t Give Up on Arena : Sports: The city is committed to finding a team before building. Anaheim project is partially built, but has no major tenant yet.

For more than two years, the vacant 17 acres on Edinger Avenue have been the land of promise--that some day, maybe by late 1993, a 20,000-seat sports arena would bring fame and fortune to the city’s southern sector.

The City Council, acting as the Redevelopment Agency, even voted in 1990 to loan a private development group as much as $3.5 million annually for 30 years to move along the arena project.

Developer Anthony V. Guanci made plans last year to publicly introduce arena investors and unveil a model arena suite that would be used to lure down payments from potential buyers.

But the public unveiling was never held, and city officials said recently that no money has been transferred to the $85-million project.

The only Orange County arena under construction is the $100-million Anaheim Arena, which is 35% complete and scheduled to be finished by the fall of 1993.

Still, Santa Ana officials and Guanci insist that their project is very much alive.

“It’s right where it’s been,” Guanci said. “It’s searching for a team.”

Holding firm to their commitment to be fiscally prudent and not begin construction until a professional basketball or hockey team agrees to be the major tenant, Santa Ana officials have turned their project into the field of “wait and see.”

Taking a line from the film “Field of Dreams,” Guanci questioned Anaheim’s expectation that “if you build it, they will come”--build the arena and a team will sign up.

“Maybe they (Anaheim officials) can get an arena football team or tractor pulls,” he said of sports options currently available.

But his skepticism does not extend to the Santa Ana project, which is continuing its efforts to woo a major sports franchise.

Twice in recent months, Guanci said, he and his partners have been “inches away from absolutely purchasing a franchise and bringing them to Orange County.” He would not disclose the teams, but he said one is in the National Basketball Assn. and the other is in the National Hockey League.

They backed out at the last minute, he added, because their cities offered additional perks to keep them in place.

“Teams are using Santa Ana and using Anaheim to get a better deal and to close a deal in the cities they are in,” Guanci said, adding that NBA Commissioner David Stern also has a firm policy of leaving teams in their current cities.

Compounding the NBA team recruitment problem, Guanci added, is the lack of a television market in Orange County to generate new advertising revenue for the NBA. Instead, it is seen as an extension of the Los Angeles television market where the Lakers and Clippers are already based.

On the financing front, Guanci said the stagnant economy is keeping corporations--the usual purchasers of arena suites--from making long-term financial commitments.

“You have corporations that are laying people off, you have executives forced by their stockholders to take a cut in pay, you have banks going out of business, you have real estate people closing their operations,” Guanci said. “It’s difficult to raise (money) from suites in a building without a professional sports franchise.”

But once a team is in place, Guanci maintained, Santa Ana will have more cash incentives to offer than Anaheim because the Anaheim project is a publicly funded facility.

With 134 club suites proposed for the Santa Ana arena, compared to 82 in Anaheim, teams can negotiate for a larger cut of the suite revenue in Santa Ana, Guanci said.

But in Anaheim, arena spokesman John J. Nicoletti said officials have had to speed up their marketing strategy because of a high interest in their project.

Nicoletti said 1,400 people have already asked about buying into the club suites or the 1,700 club concourse seats. Financial commitments can be firmed up beginning in April, he added, when Anaheim’s model suite is opened.

“We started the project on the premise that our prospects of drawing a professional basketball or hockey team to this market are good,” Nicoletti said.

“The question is no longer ‘if,’ but I think the question now is ‘who and when,’ ” he said.

Given that Anaheim’s project will be the first one completed in Orange County, Nicoletti said he did not know if the market could support another arena.

But Guanci speculated there could be room in Orange County for both arenas because NBA teams do not like to share their facilities with hockey teams.

“The (Los Angeles) Kings get a minor share (of revenue) because the Lakers are the main tenant” the Forum, Guanci said. “If Anaheim gets an NBA team, then Santa Ana would want to get NHL. Anything is possible.”