Labor of Love

Just in the last couple of weeks, they started moving the dirt around on Charlie Pasarell’s Field of Dreams.

There are huge graders, a dozen of them, and water trucks fighting to keep the desert dirt down. And there are men in hard hats, sleeves rolled up, poring over blueprints.

Still, at this stage, the apple of Pasarell’s eye is 145 acres of dust, sagebrush and nothingness at the intersection of Miles and Washington avenues in this resort city about 30 miles east of Palm Springs. Actually, the site isn’t even officially in Indian Wells, but is an unincorporated finger of land in Riverside County.

It is from this, in a little more than 15 months, Pasarell says, that he will build the “crown jewel of tennis.” Some skeptics in the sports and business worlds are less optimistic.

If he gets his way, as he has in his previous tennis ventures, Pasarell will give Southern California and the Palm Springs area a tennis facility unlike any other, a facility that will accommodate a tennis tournament ranking behind only Wimbledon and the French, Australian and U.S. Opens--simply because those are anointed the Grand Slams.

The thing is, Pasarell’s current tournaments in early March, the men’s Newsweek Champions Cup and the women’s State Farm Evert Cup, already stand tall. They are played in a 12-year-old permanent stadium, seating 10,000.

(Nobody is saying it, but the likelihood is that the Hyatt owners of the current stadium will fill it in and use the land for a spa or more convention space.)

Pasarell’s tournaments are surrounded by the ambience of one of the nicer resorts in the world. And they invariably draw most of the top players in the game, plus a nice sampling of world press and a loyal crowd of high-demographic spectators, who can watch tennis and vacation in lush warmth while winter freezes on most everywhere else.

So, things are very good for Pasarell.

But very good is not enough for Pasarell. While most climb their professional mountains and, once there, rest contentedly at the top, Pasarell looks for new peaks. He is 56 now, a major decision maker in the sport and far removed from his days as UCLA’s co-No. 1 player with Arthur Ashe and later world rankings on the men’s tour. He is a middle-aged businessman with the patience of a 10-year-old for the status quo. Others may dream but Pasarell does it in Technicolor and 3-D.

“I told myself, if I build this, they will come,” he said. “And they have, already. Sponsors, ticket buyers . . . “

His dream, much closer to reality with the digging and grading underway, is ambitious, even slightly mind-boggling.

In March 2000, what’s now a pile of dirt at the corner of Miles and Washington in the area that will by then probably be annexed by the city of Indian Wells, will be the capital of the world of tennis for two weeks.

The facility will be built on 52 of the 145 acres bought by Pasarell and his partners. A main stadium will seat 16,000, and two show-court stadiums will seat 8,000 and 5,000. A clubhouse court will have seats for 3,000, and between 11 and 13 sunken courts will seat about 500 each.

The main stadium will have 39 suites on two levels. On the first level, nine suites will be configured so that there will be room in each for 144 ticket holders who now are Pasarell’s terrace box patrons. Each of these suites will have individual restaurants, bars and restrooms. Five of those nine will be for the public, the four others for sponsors.

On the second level, 30 suites will be built in three sizes, seating 24, 36 or 48. These will be sold to businesses, corporations and private parties with fat wallets.

An area for dining, retail sales and exhibition space will cover five acres to the north of the main stadium. The tournament currently uses 1.8 acres for this.

There will be parking for 7,000 cars and a tunnel under Miles Avenue will put spectators on a winding, tree-lined walk--Pasarell calls it a California arroyo--past the outside courts to the central plaza area and the center court.

Eventually, but not by 2000, much of the remaining land--93 acres--surrounding the complex will be used for construction of a couple of high-end hotels to the south and condominiums to the north and west.

The main stadium will have state-of-the-art press and broadcast skybox facilities, plus a complex for players that will include a large training room--”Bigger than the U.S. Open,” Pasarell said. Also planned are a child-care center, a room for racket stringing, a fitness facility, a hair salon, a laundry room and a quiet room where players can go to gather their thoughts before matches--or sulk after them.

“I remember when I was a player,” Pasarell said, pointing with pride to his quiet-room concept, “I never had anywhere to go to be by myself before or after a match, so I always just kind of sat in front of my locker.”

He also has plans for a separate, plusher, locker room and lounge area for past champions, the walls to be hung with photos of their Indian Wells triumphs.

“We will have one large dining room area for the press and players,” Pasarell said. “But we will be able to put up a partition to separate the two groups if that doesn’t work out.”

Give it three days.

The price tag for this project is $65 million, and the complex is planned primarily for the two weeks of tournament tennis. Pasarell said his projections include no concerts or additional events. He added that the facility will be open year round as a members’ tennis club, but that revenue generated by that will be minimal.

Pasarell and his management team--main partner Ray Moore, also a former world-ranked player, and administrators Steve Simon and Dee Dee Felich--are equal partners in this project with IMG, the world’s largest sports management corporation. IMG owns the Evert Cup portion of Pasarell’s two-week event and its involvement gives the project deep-pocket credibility.

Most of the cost is expected to be financed by $50 million worth of private bonds. That deal is expected to be completed by mid-December.

The cost of the land and accompanying real estate fees for the joint Pasarell/IMG group was about $8 million. Riverside County is making about $3 million in infrastructure improvements, and the city of Indian Wells is contributing $2.5 million by purchasing the naming rights to the complex.

That means that Pasarell’s Field of Dreams actually will be called something more like Indian Wells Gardens. That $2.5 million is for 10 years, and Indian Wells has an option to re-up.

Pasarell said that last March’s Grand Champions event generated about $4 million in ticket sales and about $10 million from all sources, among them sponsors and television rights. He said about $17 million in annual revenue would be the target to satisfy bond holders in the new project.

He estimated that a front-row box seat that cost $750 in 1998 would cost about $900 in 2000, adding that the increased capacity of the 16,000-seat stadium would also allow for more lower-priced seats.

Pasarell and his partners call this “Project 2000.” Skeptics, some of them citing the current dip in the popularity of tennis and others the apparent insanity of investing $65 million in a facility used two weeks a year, might call it “Mission: Impossible.”

Pasarell, while admitting to normal anxiety, hardly loses stride.

“Sure, I’ve had a few nights when I woke up in a cold sweat and asked myself why I am doing this,” he said. “But it’s in my blood. It’s what I want to do. It’s exciting, a challenge.

“I love the sport of tennis. It has been my life. And I just want to build the biggest event I can, something that will be second to none.”