A Promising Deal Teeters

To paraphrase Oliver Hardy, here’s another fine mess the Los Angeles City Council’s gotten us into.

The mess, in this case, is the council’s failure to agree to a deal that would bring to downtown a new arena for the Lakers and the Kings. After months of negotiations and key concessions by the developers, the council’s incessant bickering and posturing have apparently led the arena developers to consider throwing up their hands and building a new arena in Inglewood instead. This is hardly the way to put together a project that most council members claim to want.

Now, absent a clear signal from the council that it truly wants a deal, it won’t happen. For those in City Hall who cannot see the “forest” of potential city benefits for the “trees” of endless squabbles, a little review is in order.

Developers Edward P. Roski and Philip Anschutz and the sports club owners offered to spend $200 million to build an arena that would be home for the next 25 years to the hugely popular professional basketball and hockey teams. Centrally located near the Convention Center downtown, the arena would also be a state-of-the-art venue for concerts and other sporting and entertainment events.

What would the city get out of this deal? A huge, spanking new complex in a part of town all but devoid of major development, new tax revenue from the property improvements and ticket sales, and spillover retail and commercial activity around the site. Moreover, the city’s costs are fixed at $70 million and the developers have assured Los Angeles an annual revenue stream to reimburse it for that outlay. In short, there should be no impact on general fund services like police and fire protection or libraries.

As outlined, this is a good deal. Yes, there is risk on both sides--there will always be that--but there is enormous promise as well. And last we looked, no one is waiting to step up to the plate if Roski and Anschutz leave the field.

Yet for all this, the developers increasingly are cast as an enemy of the people. They are harangued on the radio, in press conferences, in meetings among some council members. A nonbinding agreement supposedly struck before Thanksgiving may be coming unglued as City Hall’s 15 princes and princesses put on elaborate jousting matches with their own team of negotiators, the developers’ representatives and one another. And most of this has occurred behind closed doors.

Council members may have one last chance to demonstrate that they care more about the city than themselves. Council President John Ferraro says he will try to meet today with Roski. If he does--and we hope he does--Ferraro and his colleagues should make it clear that they intend for negotiations to culminate in a deal, and soon. And then they need to make that happen.