Coliseum Plan Requires Subsidy of $100 Million, Official Says

Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, a member of the Los Angeles Coliseum Commission, said Wednesday that he has been told a public subsidy of $100 million would be required to renovate the Coliseum for a new National Football League team.

His remarks were the first public suggestion that tax money might be needed on such a large scale for the project.

Yaroslavsky did not identify the source of his information, other than to indicate generally that it came from those who have been working on the renovation plan to present to the NFL later this month.

His comment drew a quick rebuttal from Los Angeles City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, one of the most prominent proponents of the plan.

“I’ve never heard or seen anything that in any way approximates that,” Ridley-Thomas said in an interview. “I can assure you there’s no public subsidy that in any way approximates that number.”

Ridley-Thomas did not rule out some use of public money on the renovation, but, he said, “the numbers have not even been finalized in that regard.”

Ridley-Thomas concluded, “I just have to believe [Yaroslavsky] misunderstood somebody.”

Yaroslavsky made his comment at the monthly meeting of the Coliseum Commission. Coliseum general manager Pat Lynch, who has been in touch with those drafting the renovation plan, did not disagree.

Lynch told the commission that total costs of the Coliseum renovation, including additional parking for the stadium, were now estimated at $230 million--up from the $150-million estimate offered a few weeks ago.

Of this figure, he said, bare bones construction on the stadium would amount to $143 million, and $42 million more would be architectural and other fees.

An active exploration is under way to determine whether Community Redevelopment Agency money could be used to help defray these costs, Lynch said, as well as a study to show how much new tax revenue might be generated by football and other events at the renovated facility.

Yaroslavsky, long a skeptic of using public money for sports, told fellow commissioners that he is afraid “the whole thing may blow up in our faces” once the use of taxpayers money is officially broached. He also expressed unhappiness that the commission was not kept better informed about the renovation plans.

Ridley-Thomas and other city officials working on the Coliseum overhaul have been unwilling to provide specifics about the financing plan, which is scheduled to be unveiled next week. They have said that they plan to borrow as much as possible against the future revenues from the facility--everything from ticket sales to billboard space, luxury seats, hot dog vendors and Super Bowl contracts.

Coliseum Commission President Roger Kozberg said he does not think financial analysts have settled on an exact number, but that there clearly would be a gap between the cost of construction and the amount that could be raised through the sale of personal seat licenses and bonds issued against stadium revenues. How much of the stadium revenues the future team owner demands is also a crucial factor, he noted.

“I don’t know if $100 million is the right number,” he said. “It’s undoubtedly more than $50 [million], and it’s probably less than $100 [million].”

Yaroslavsky’s comments come at a time of controversy over plans for public funding of at least $60 million for a proposed indoor arena for basketball, hockey and other events at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

Councilman Joel Wachs, a foe of the arena plan because of the public financing, has said that he would be more likely to support public participation in renovating the Coliseum.

“One big difference is the public owns the Coliseum,” Wachs said in a recent interview, before the $100-million figure was mentioned. “With the arena, they want the public to build it for someone else.”