Ram Backers: Remodel Big A, Build Ball Park : Sports: Group urges publicly funded upgrade of Anaheim Stadium for NFL team, plus a new baseball facility for the Angels. They say time pressure was a factor in their decision.

A group of local and political heavyweights who are scrambling to woo the Los Angeles Rams from ardent suitors settled on a plan Tuesday that includes funding a new baseball, rather than a football, stadium.

At its weekly meeting, members of “Save the Rams” decided to focus on a $50-million to $70-million publicly funded overhaul of Anaheim Stadium for the Rams while erecting a public and privately funded new baseball stadium for the California Angels nearby, said Newport Beach sports agent Leigh Steinberg, co-chairman of the committee.

“The heavy push is going to be toward refurbishment,” Steinberg said. “Economically, it’s easier to fund construction of a new baseball stadium than a football stadium. . . . It’s not as if the effort to save the Rams might not soon be needed for the Angels. This way you have two happy tenants.”

Steinberg said the group was more or less forced to shelve plans for a new football stadium after hearing from a representative of a Kansas City-based stadium contracting firm Monday night.

“With the tremendous timeline pressure we’re under, we came to the reluctant conclusion that it’s almost impossible to put the numbers together for a new (football) stadium,” said Orange County Supervisor William G. Steiner, a member of a subcommittee looking at new stadium possibilities.

The Rams are expected to announce if--and where--they plan to move before the football season starts in September.

Steiner said the county already has explored using revenue bonds, at no cost to taxpayers, to finance $60 million of the refurbishment and making 17 acres of county land--the Katella maintenance yard across from The Pond of Anaheim--available for use in the project.

Discussions were also underway with the city of Orange on Tuesday afternoon about building a state-of-the-art training facility directly across the Santa Ana River from Anaheim Stadium, Steiner said.

The group also is rounding up both corporate and individual investors, including Bill Taormina, chairman of Taormina Industries Inc., to buy up to 40% of the Rams from owner Georgia Frontiere. A number of investors, both locally and outside Orange County, have expressed a firm interest in buying a part of the team, worth approximately $150 million, Steinberg said.

“It’s a good pop of cash to give to her,” he said. “It’s a way to make us competitive.”

Steinberg also said the group would have to guarantee at least 10,000 to 15,000 season ticket holders and a substantial number of luxury box commitments to sweeten the deal.

“The Rams are going to need to see base line ticket sales closer to 55,000 going to 70,000, instead of the 45,000 they said they drew last year,” he said.

Steinberg said the refurbished stadium, with completely reconstructed luxury boxes and new sightlines, will not look anything like the bland, functional concrete of the current stadium. The group hopes to court local businesses, including the Walt Disney Co., to make an entertainment corridor, perhaps linked by a monorail to other area attractions.

“We need to re-create the area as an activity center,” Steinberg said.

The group intends to unveil its proposal during an elaborate Ramsfest bash at the annual Rams booster luncheon on Aug. 19, Steinberg said.

“The pace is now about to accelerate,” he said. “We’re not being Pollyannaish about this.”