Roski Sets High Goal: NFL’s Return to L.A.

The optimist sees the doughnut, as they say, while the pessimist sees the hole.

So after months of political grappling to earn Los Angeles City Council approval for a planned $300-million downtown hockey and basketball arena, Edward Roski is champing at the bit to continue an even tougher battle: bringing the National Football League back to the Coliseum.

Both a fan and an athlete, a man who has climbed mountains around the world, Roski is apparently the type who yearns for ever-loftier summits to conquer.

The Toluca Lake resident inherited the Majestic Realty Co. from his father and built the firm into one of Southern California’s top real estate development companies. He burst onto the sports scene in 1995 when he and Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz purchased the Kings.

The tireless Los Angeles booster felt he was buying into more than just a game.

“If we are going to be a city that sees itself as one of the major cities in the world, then [professional sports] are another amenity,” Roski said. “It’s the same as having the museums and Disney Hall.”

For a time, the campaign to build the downtown arena struggled over financial agreements with the city. The developers had initially intended to repay $58 million in municipal bonds from sales, property and utility taxes generated by their sports complex.

Councilman Joel Wachs referred to the arrangement as a “public subsidy” and opposed the project until the developers promised not to repay the city with those taxes. Roski characteristically trumpets the compromise as a win-win situation.

“It’s something that all the citizens of Los Angeles, from the Valley through the South Coast, can be real proud of and participate in,” he said. “This arena will be central to everywhere.”

Roski feels similarly about the Coliseum.

“To me, as a developer, Exposition Park is the location this type of facility should be in,” he said. “You need a location . . . that everyone can get to.”

The New Coliseum Team wants to refurbish the stadium at a cost of $280 million, with the help of state taxpayers.

To transform that plan into reality, Roski will have to spend much of 1998 convincing legislators as well as consolidating the efforts of his own team, which has suffered from political infighting and what some claim is a lack of leadership.

At the same time, Coliseum backers face a surging competitor in the form of Hollywood Park.

But for someone as optimistic as Roski, none of this is cause for alarm.

“We just have to do the same as we did with the arena,” he said. “It’s going to happen. We’re not going away.”