Airport Foes’ Game Plan: A New Stadium

Community groups fighting plans to build an airport at El Toro Marine Corps Air Station said Wednesday they have foreign financing for a rival proposal that includes a lavish sports and entertainment complex and an 80,000-seat stadium tailor-made for a National Football League franchise.

Some critics dismissed the proposal as a desperate and unlikely bid to stop the airport. But Pacific Palisades sports executive Michael O’Hara, who served as top lieutenant to Peter Ueberroth during the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, predicted success.

“We’re very excited about it,” said O’Hara, who has entered into a partnership with Taxpayers for Responsible Planning, a group of mostly South County residents leading the fight against a commercial airport at El Toro. “It would be great not only for Orange County but for all of Southern California.”

O’Hara, 64, who competed as a volleyball player in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, said he hopes to develop a 3,000-room hotel, a 350,000-square-foo convention center, a championship golf course, an annual auto grand prix, an “NFL Experience” theme park and a state-of-the-art stadium that could potentially compete with Los Angeles for a professional football franchise.

The development would be situated on 440 acres of prime El Toro land that, although owned by the federal government, falls within the city limits of Irvine. Irvine Mayor Christina L. Shea and others in South County have enthusiastically endorsed the project.

“I’m not just a backer--I wanted to initiate it six months ago,” Shea said Wednesday. “I would love to bring an NFL team to Irvine.”

Shea said the city has “much to offer the league,” including advantages that make it “far superior” to Los Angeles.

“We have the best location--the stadium would be right near the Y [the junction of interstates 5 and 405], we have a lot less crime in Irvine than they do in L.A., and we have a pro-family environment that would be good for the future of the NFL,” Shea said.

Shea also has been involved in recruiting some big-name backers to, in her words, give the project more credibility.

The mayor, O’Hara and Irvine Councilman Dave Christensen recently held a 2 1/2-hour meeting with noted sports agent Leigh Steinberg in an effort to solicit his advice, said O’Hara, who also hopes to enlist the support of his former boss, Emerald Bay resident Ueberroth.

Neither Ueberroth nor Steinberg could be reached for comment.

Supporters of the new proposal admit it is a gambit designed to kill the airport plan by generating a groundswell of public support for the sprawling sports complex. And backers of the sports and entertainment complex stress they have no interest in moving forward if an airport is developed at the base.

But critics scoffed at the proposal Wednesday and said an airport is destined for El Toro.

“The bottom line still remains that the preferred option at El Toro is a commercial airport,” said Bruce Nestande, president of the pro-airport lobby, Citizens for Jobs and the Economy.

The plan still faces critical hurdles. The Orange County Board of Supervisors, the federally recognized planning authority for the base, has already endorsed an airport at El Toro, in part because of two countywide votes supporting that option.

The county’s designated spokeswoman on El Toro did not return phone calls seeking comment Wednesday. But County Chief Executive Officer Jan Mittermeier said last week that while “non-aviation alternatives”--including a stadium--would be considered as options for the base, a commercial airport remains the primary focus.

The El Toro proposal also incorporates many of the same elements as Sportstown, a retail and entertainment complex being considered by the city of Anaheim. Last week, Anaheim city officials chose a developer for its 40-acre tract surrounding Anaheim Stadium, which is undergoing a baseball-only refurbishment and is only a stone’s throw from the Pond.

Anaheim city spokesman Bret Colson was skeptical about the project proposed for El Toro, noting that Anaheim is keeping a portion of Sportstown available for a 75,000-seat football stadium--but has yet to find a franchise ready to relocate.

Supporters of the most specific non-aviation alternative to date for the lame-duck Marine base said Wednesday the Irvine sports-entertainment complex would serve to enhance Orange County’s existing sports franchises and facilities--not compete against them.

O’Hara and Bill Kogerman, co-founder of Laguna Hills-based Taxpayers for Responsible Planning, conceded that the far-reaching plan mandates the cooperation of the NFL, which has officially committed itself to putting its next Los Angeles-area franchise in a renovated Coliseum, near the USC campus.

And despite their lofty goals, as of Wednesday O’Hara and Kogerman had yet to approach NFL officials with what they have in mind. Nevertheless, league spokesman Greg Aiello said the NFL would “certainly be interested in learning the details” of the Irvine proposal.

At the moment, Aiello said, “Our focus continues to be on the Coliseum, but at some point in the future, we may have to consider other options, and this could be an intriguing alternative.”

O’Hara said the project would be financed entirely with private money, with 40% of the estimated $500-million cost coming from the Tata Group, a multinational corporation based in New Delhi, whose seven major companies reported sales of $6.2 billion in revenue in the last fiscal year with $656.2 million in profit.

Officials for the Tata Group, which Asiaweek magazine describes as “India’s biggest industrial conglomerate,” could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.

The El Toro base sprawls over 4,700 acres. O’Hara said preliminary plans call for confining the sports and entertainment project to the 440 acres within Irvine--a parcel that inspired the county to sue the city of Irvine after Irvine sued the county over the controversial environmental impact report regarding an airport at El Toro.

While limiting the project to 440 acres would leave space for both the project and an airport, Kogerman and O’Hara insisted the Tata Group has no interest in seeing even a small commercial airport co-exist with the project, citing noise and environmental concerns.

“We see this happening in place of an airport, instead of an airport,” Kogerman said. But supporters of an airport at El Toro said the two projects could work well together.

Former Newport Beach Mayor Clarence Turner, a spokesman for the Airport Working Group, said a sports and entertainment center could be the perfect complement to a major international airport at El Toro.

“Stadiums and convention centers look for airports to make them viable,” Turner said. Turner called it “inconceivable,” however, that the federal government--owner of the 440 acres of Irvine land on which part of the base sits--would sign off on the construction of such a project, and even O’Hara and Kogerman called that a critical component.

“You mean the government is going to transfer this to the city and say, ‘Here’s 440 acres so you can build a stadium and block our airport’?” Turner said. “I see this as a lot of hot air, a lot of smoke.”

Times staff writer Greg Johnson contributed to this report.