Coliseum Panel OKs Stadium Agreement

After shoring up its financial protections, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Commission approved an agreement Wednesday granting a group led by real estate developer Ed Roski the exclusive right to seek a new professional football team to play in a modernized Coliseum.

Although it approved the contract 8-0 at a special open session, the commission’s vote was the culmination of last-minute, behind-the-scenes negotiations between its members and Roski’s group, New Coliseum Venture.

The commission wanted to ensure that it does not have to pay Roski’s group a $5-million “breakout fee” if the National Football League awards another party the right to bring a pro franchise to the Coliseum. Roski wanted protections of his own, including an exclusive negotiating agreement.

“Mr. Roski, you have a new partner,” Coliseum Commission President Mike Roos told the developer after a half-hour of discussion and the vote.

The pact opens the way for Roski and his partners to negotiate a long-term lease under which they will spend $200 million to remodel the aging Coliseum and then manage it as a venue for football, soccer, concerts and other events.

It also allows New Coliseum Venture and commission members to present a united front when they travel to Kansas City next week for an NFL owners meeting.

At that Oct. 27 gathering, they will try to persuade the NFL to award an expansion franchise to them rather than famed deal-maker Michael Ovitz, who is seeking a team to play in a stadium and entertainment complex he proposes to build in Carson.

“I think it’s a good proposal,” commission member and City Council President John Ferraro said of New Coliseum Venture’s plan. “They deserve . . . our full cooperation, and I think we’ve done that with this agreement.”

Roski described the vote as “a defining moment in this process.”

“It gives us the ability to finally say the [Coliseum] facility is available as it has never been before,” and that the new stadium “will be designed and managed to be really a very state-of-the-art facility,” Roski said in an interview.

Roski said he looks forward to competing with Ovitz, whom he described as “a friend,” and with another proposal to award the next NFL expansion franchise to Houston.

A New Look for the Coliseum

Under the terms of the agreement approved Wednesday, if the Coliseum lands an NFL team, New Coliseum Venture would commit $200 million or more for a renovated stadium with a capacity of 67,000 seats, expandable to about 80,000 seats. It would also include a luxury seating concourse providing up to 15,000 club seats and 150 skybox suites.

The Roski group will get several months to devise a final business and financing plan; the pact requires that they submit it to the Coliseum Commission by February--or a later date under extenuating circumstances.

If they don’t, or if the commission does not approve it, the deal is off.

Over the last several weeks, the contract was negotiated mostly by Roos and Coliseum Commissioner Sheldon Sloan. But in recent days, the deal was cemented during talks between Roski representative and high-powered lobbyist George Mihlsten, Coliseum Commission General Manager Patrick Lynch and two commissioners--county Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky and lawyer Lisa Specht.

Roski said he and Ovitz “have talked” about their competing proposals, but he would not compare them.

“Both of us are trying to show the NFL that Los Angeles is ready for the NFL. We just happen to have different ideas on how to do that,” Roski said, adding that he plans to turn the historic Coliseum south of downtown into a “world-class, state-of-the-art” stadium.

Teams New and Old May Apply

Under the terms of the agreement, Roski and his partners have the right not only to seek an expansion team, but also to field proposals from existing franchises hoping to move to a better market.

The agreement resolves the concerns of some Coliseum Commission members, including Yaroslavsky and Specht, about whether the publicly owned Coliseum and its commissioners could be left holding the bag for New Coliseum Venture’s costs.

The initial proposal could have obligated the commission to pay the Roski partnership as much as $5 million if an NFL team comes to the Coliseum, independent of Roski’s efforts, during the two years of the agreement.

The official agreement approved Wednesday stipulates that the financial obligation would come from the future NFL tenant and not the Coliseum Commission.

It also narrows the scope of that financial obligation to exclude lobbying, political activities and reimbursement for the time and effort that Roski and his partners spend getting a team to Los Angeles. Only expenses incurred to “thirdparty contractors, vendors, professionals, suppliers and similar entities” and other legitimate costs of remodeling the Coliseum and securing an NFL team would be recoverable.

Both Roski and the commission members downplayed the new clause in the agreement that allows them to broaden their efforts to include bringing an existing NFL team to the Coliseum. The agreement, in fact, says, “It is not the intent of the commission to actively solicit offers or proposals from existing NFL teams.”

Roski, however, said that he was “sure there will be a number of existing teams that will be challenged in their marketplace” who may want to move to Los Angeles, especially if NFL owners award the expansion franchise to Houston.