NFL Shows Interest in Stadium Plan

As airport advocates criticized plans to study building a stadium at the retiring El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, professional football officials said Wednesday they want to learn more about the city’s plans.

“We don’t know the details, but we would be interested in hearing their ideas,” National Football League spokesman Greg Aiello said.

Plans to attract a football team to Irvine could pit it against Los Angeles, which has a head start with its proposal to renovate the Los Angeles Coliseum into a home for a new franchise.

But Mayor Christina L. Shea said she’s not afraid of the competition, and believes the South County offers a more attractive location than urban Los Angeles.

“We’re hoping to push the envelope and get the first team,” Shea said.

The City Council this week commissioned a $63,000 study to determine whether it makes financial sense to build a professional sports stadium or arena for football or other teams on a 400-acre site at El Toro.

The accounting firm Arthur Andersen & Co. is expected to complete the study by year’s end.

The site is the subject of a legal dispute between the city and the county.

Airport proponents on Wednesday called Irvine’s study a “gross waste of taxpayers’ money.”

“Why they are doing it is beyond me--except for political reasons,” said Clarence Turner, director of Airport Working Group, a Newport Beach-based group that supports an airport at El Toro.

Retired Anaheim City Councilman Frank Feldhaus, who in 1996 cast one of the votes in favor of his city’s Sportstown project, which calls for a football stadium, said he does not believe Irvine can support a stadium.

“I wish them the best of luck but I cannot imagine it being a good business venture,” he said.

Irvine city officials said Wednesday their support for a stadium is unrelated to their opposition to an airport. City officials said the stadium may work with or without an airport--which has the support of the Orange County Board of Supervisors.

“I don’t want to make this an airport issue. I want it to stand on its own,” Shea said.

But allowing an airport at El Toro could kill a proposal by Pacific Palisades entrepreneur Michael O’Hara to build an 85,000-seat stadium, a hotel and golf course at the base, airport opponents said. The cost would be about $500 million.

“O’Hara and his partners adamantly oppose the airport,” said Bill Kogerman, who is involved in the O’Hara proposal and is head of the anti-airport group Taxpayers for Responsible Planning.

O’Hara could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Irvine homeowners associations appeared undecided on the stadium issue.

Bill Mavity, treasurer with the Woodbridge Assn., said he is not opposed to the idea of stadium--as long as residents don’t have to pay for it. “My guess is that it’s a long shot, but the crazy way things go in sports these days you never know,” he said.