First Phase of Coliseum’s Renovation Begins : Modernization: Seating capacity for pro football will be reduced to 68,000 next fall, offering prospect of fewer TV blackouts of Raider games, officials say.

A groundbreaking ceremony Wednesday for the $15-million first phase of Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum renovation included declarations from Coliseum officials and the Los Angeles Raiders that the stadium’s seating capacity for professional football will be reduced to 68,000 next fall.

The 70-year-old stadium--site of two Olympics, two Super Bowls and the 1959 World Series--currently seats 92,516 for football and soccer.

The first phase calls for lowering the field level by 11 feet and installing 14 new rows of seats, about 8,000 in all, closer to the playing action. Project manager Don Webb said that more than 30,000 other seats will either be eliminated, covered by a tarp or folded back into an unusable position for Raider games.

Webb said all seats in the eastern peristyle will be eliminated, and he suggested that seats in the upper corners of the stadium’s east end and many in its west end will be covered or folded back.

The downsizing of the stadium will make it easier for the Raiders to sell out, which is necessary under National Football League rules for games to be televised locally. With its huge capacity, the stadium has seldom been filled and the Raiders have rarely escaped the TV blackout.

Team owner Al Davis also has emphasized that bringing seats closer to the sidelines will provide a noisier, more emotional atmosphere for the team.

Webb and N. Matthew Grossman, the Coliseum Commission’s new president, said Wednesday that the first phase of the renovation--to be completed in time for Raider exhibition games next August--still will leave stadium managers the capability of providing about 85,000 seats for the biggest USC games, against Notre Dame and UCLA. This would be accomplished by uncovering or folding out thousands of seats.

Coliseum officials said there is also a possibility the additional seats could be provided for a Super Bowl or for a Raider playoff game, although Raiders’ representatives said that possibility had not been broached to the team and that the team is not in favor of it.

Coliseum and Raider officials said Wednesday that the reduction in the seating capacity will be done tastefully.

During the groundbreaking ceremony--attended by Mayor Tom Bradley, commission members and representatives of the Raiders and USC--Webb said that past plans for a prospective second phase called for renovations that were too expensive.

For instance, Webb said that the plans unveiled in 1990 for building a second deck of seats between the goal posts on both sides of the stadium, and scores of luxury suites between the decks at mid-levels of the stadium, have been abandoned.

When luxury boxes are built, he said, they probably will be on the Coliseum’s rim or just below the rim.

The work being done this year, under a guaranteed cost contract with the Tutor-Saliba Corp., will be paid for with money won several years ago by the Coliseum Commission in its suit against the NFL for impeding the move of the Raiders from Oakland to Los Angeles in the early 1980s.

It is unclear where money for the luxury boxes would come from, since the expenditure this year would almost deplete the commission’s coffers, and there is no apparent prospect that taxpayer funds will be available.

However, Grossman and outgoing Coliseum Commission President William Robertson have said a bank, which they have not named, has expressed willingness to consider loaning money for the second phase. Webb said there could be as many as eight phases before the renovation is complete.

Among other work to be done in the first phase, Webb said, will be providing additional handicapped-seating areas, installing a closed-circuit FM broadcasting system for the blind, putting in a landscaped terrace in the peristyle end and modernizing restrooms on the stadium grounds. Press room expansion is to await a second or later phase.