Convention Center Panel Backs Arena Plan

While behind-the-scenes meetings continued at City Hall, plans to bring a professional sports and entertainment complex to rejuvenate Los Angeles’ sagging Convention Center area got a hearty thumbs-up Wednesday--though only in concept--from one branch of the sprawling municipal bureaucracy.

The Los Angeles Convention and Exhibition Center Authority board unanimously embraced efforts to lure the Kings and Lakers--which also are studying a site in Inglewood--to build an arena that officials say would help the district just south of downtown.

While Wednesday’s vote was the first by any of the assorted government boards that ultimately would have a voice in any binding deal between the sports teams’ owners and the city, its value was primarily symbolic.

The real action remained at City Hall, where negotiators for Kings hockey team owners Edward Roski and Philip Anschutz continued to meet with key officials, trying to reach a deal. If negotiations are successful, the Kings representatives will submit a written proposal.

Some sources close to the negotiations said there has been steady progress and predicted that a proposal could come this week or next, assuming a handful of remaining issues can be resolved. At least one other key source, however, was pessimistic.

“You could say we’re very close,” said John Semcken of Majestic Realty, the development firm working with the Kings owners on the Convention Center venture. Like others, he declined to discuss details, citing the ongoing negotiations.

But he cautioned that the owners will also submit a proposal to Inglewood and will continue to work with that city even if they do get a preliminary approval from Los Angeles.

The dual negotiations, along with the team owners’ desire to begin play in the facility by September 1999, has raised the pressure on the two cities, whose leaders see the arena as a prime economic booster.

Inglewood City Manager Paul Eckles said the vote did not surprise him, but he hastened to repeat his own city’s pitch--that it is better suited for the new arena and can move more quickly than Los Angeles to accommodate the project.

“Everybody would like to have it,” Eckles said, “but that doesn’t mean they can deliver on it.”

His reference to Los Angeles’ notorious bureaucracy and its fractious political climate was echoed by a source close to the talks on behalf of the Kings.

“Things are anything but certain and we are frustrated by the lack of progress,” said the source, who requested anonymity.

Los Angeles’ effort, which would include helping the team owners obtain a Convention Center-owned site and selling bonds as a loan to help get the project off the ground, has been underway for months but kicked into high gear with an Aug. 6 letter formally inviting the owners to submit a proposal. The letter was signed by Mayor Richard Riordan; Council President John Ferraro; Councilwoman Rita Walters, whose district includes the site; Convention Center General Manager Dick Walsh, and John Molloy, executive director of the Community Redevelopment Agency.

Times staff writer Abigail Goldman and correspondent Maki Becker contributed to this story.