NFL Stadium Plan Outlined

A business group trying to bring the NFL back to Los Angeles revealed its plans Wednesday for a new, 64,000-seat football stadium near Staples Center that will require financial assists from the city and the league.

Officials of the Anschutz Entertainment Group, or AEG, said they will ask the city to issue bonds of up to $100 million to acquire 20 acres of downtown land for the stadium that the owners would repay over time.

From the National Football League, the group said, it will seek a $150-million loan and a promise to bring three Super Bowl games to Los Angeles.

In return, the city could get at least one and possibly two NFL franchises as the league tries to fill a vacuum in the nation’s second-largest media market, according to AEG officials, who built Staples on a similar financial model.

With the exploratory plans sprinting forward on several tracks, AEG officials provided the most detailed description yet of the stadium and the deal to build it. In an interview with The Times, AEG President Tim Leiweke said the stadium would be built without any burden on taxpayers--a departure of sorts for the NFL, which has strongly encouraged public-private coalitions in the construction of stadium complexes for its teams.

Mayor James K. Hahn “has made it clear to us that there will be no risk to the general fund, no risk to taxpayers, and we said we heard that loud and clear,” Leiweke said. He said the stadium would cost $400 million to $450 million to build.

Los Angeles has been without an NFL team since before the 1995 season, when the Rams departed for St. Louis and the Raiders for their ancestral home, Oakland.

Putting a team back in L.A. has become one of the league’s top priorities--in part to tap the huge television market in Southern California, in part because the league would like to get L.A. back in the rotation for Super Bowls.

The stadium deal is contingent upon bringing a team to L.A. Speculation has focused on the San Diego Chargers’ moving to a new Los Angeles stadium, but Leiweke said half a dozen current NFL teams may be contenders.

The Chargers and one other team have initiated discussions with the developers, he said. He declined to name the other team.

Asked Wednesday about the league’s interest in seeing a team in L.A., NFL spokesman Joe Browne said: “We are the National--underline national--Football League and Los Angeles is the No. 2 market in the nation. That seems to be a question with an obvious answer.”

The stadium would be within a redevelopment district that was given final approval by the City Council on Wednesday. Within that district, the city’s redevelopment agency has the power to condemn land and force people to sell.

The AEG project envisions the city’s use of eminent domain to secure some of the land needed for the stadium. Ninety-five percent of the parcel is now parking or warehouse space, Leiweke said.

Although no private homes or apartments would be condemned, he said, one “blighted hotel” sits in the stadium’s path. AEG has been quietly buying up land in the area for the last several months under a different name, he said, but has not yet acquired all the land it would need.

AEG officials declined to identify the precise site of the proposed stadium, saying only it would be close to Staples and within walking distance of a Blue Line light-rail station at Pico Boulevard and Flower Street. If “everything was magic,” Leiweke said, the stadium could open in time for the 2005 NFL season. Leiweke stressed that developers have not yet focused on a particular team. The group hopes to secure three Super Bowls within a 10- to 12-year period after the stadium opens. AEG has also held talks in the near future with UCLA and USC about playing at the proposed downtown stadium, although Leiweke acknowledged that USC is unlikely to abandon the Coliseum, which adjoins its campus.

Casey Wasserman, owner of the Arena Football League’s L.A. Avengers and a partner in the stadium group, said it also could serve as a venue for international soccer matches, motocross, concerts and other events. With one NFL franchise, he estimated that it would be used 32 times a year; with two franchises, about 40 times.

One criticism of football stadiums is that, compared with basketball arenas or baseball stadiums, they are in use relatively infrequently, and therefore not as effective as an economic stimulant. Leiweke said that although his company is dedicated to making a profit, not serving as a civic booster, he believes the stadium would play a role in reinvigorating downtown.

At this preliminary stage, Leiweke and others involved with the project acknowledged, a slew of economic and political hurdles remain to be cleared.

But, he said, AEG, the corporation founded by Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz, sees reason for cautious optimism. And, after a five-hour meeting last Thursday in New York at which the project was discussed in detail with the league, the NFL is optimistic, he said.

“If it makes economic sense, we’ll push forward,” Leiweke said. “If it doesn’t make economic sense, and stand on its own two feet, we’re out.”

On Tuesday, at a meeting of NFL owners in Houston, Commissioner Paul Tagliabue appointed a group of prominent owners to study an NFL return to L.A., and raised the possibility of granting L.A. an expansion team. He ruled out the Los Angeles Coliseum as a venue for NFL football.

The stadium proposal has sparked heated debate at Los Angeles City Hall, where the City Council voted final approval Wednesday of the plan to designate 879 acres of downtown as a redevelopment project area.

The designation allows the Community Redevelopment Agency to collect about $2.4 billion in property tax and other revenue from the area over the next 45 years to pay for revitalization of blighted areas of downtown.

The money generated by the City Center Plan is supposed to help build 12,900 housing units and up to 6.7 million square feet of new commercial and industrial development, including construction of a hotel next to the convention center. It also provides the mechanism needed by AEG to acquire land for the stadium.

Most council members cautiously support the stadium.

“I’m definitely supportive of the NFL coming to Los Angeles, but not on the back of taxpayer dollars. I want to make that clear, first and foremost,” said Council President Alex Padilla. “I think I speak for most people in the city.”

Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, who has championed renovating the Coliseum as a pro football stadium, said the AEG proposal needs heavy scrutiny.

“It is clear from the proposal that they are interested in taking advantage of ... the tools at the disposal of the public sector,” he said. “That gives the public sector a right to say how the deal ought to come together.”

However, Councilman Dennis Zine, one of the three who voted against the redevelopment district, said he was alarmed by the proposal, which he called a “billionaire’s boondoggle.”

“I don’t find that a stadium is going to improve the neighborhood,” he said. “The fact is, the purpose of redevelopment is not to build a football stadium. We’re talking about skid row and the homeless and people who live in cardboard boxes. They’re not going to live in the stadium.”

Hahn’s office declined to comment on the stadium plans, but said the mayor would be at an AEG news conference today to discuss the proposal.

In building Staples Center, Anschutz and Leiweke demonstrated the clout and credibility to navigate L.A. politics and get major projects done. Other financial backers of the proposed downtown stadium include billionaire supermarket mogul Ron Burkle, real estate developer Ed Roski and Wasserman.

Anschutz is the founder of Qwest Communications and has built a sports and entertainment empire that includes ownership of the NHL Kings and MLS Galaxy, part ownership of the Lakers and five European hockey clubs. Forbes magazine estimates his net worth at $9.6 billion, putting him 16th on the 2001 list of richest Americans and 54th on the 2002 list of the world’s richest people.

Though he lives in Denver, Anschutz has been a major force in trying to reshape downtown Los Angeles. In September, the City Council approved his plans for a 27-acre, $1-billion entertainment district near Staples Center, which now includes the proposed new stadium.

A rough model of the stadium depicts a horseshoe-shaped, three-tiered structure that would hold 64,000 people for regular games, 74,000 for Super Bowls.

Open at one end and at corners of the other, the stadium would include 150 to 200 luxury boxes and perhaps 9,000 club seats. The boxes would sell for perhaps $125,000 a year, the club seats for $2,000 to $5,000.

Luxury boxes and club suites have emerged in recent years as key sources of revenue for individual NFL team owners.

It remains uncertain how that revenue would be divvied up between developers and an NFL owner. Before dirt gets moved and concrete poured, however, numerous moving parts need to be synchronized.

AEG has asked the NFL to grant L.A. three Super Bowls; the NFL’s first response was to offer two. The first available Super Bowl is 2007.

In addition, AEG needs league owners to approve what’s called a “G-3” loan, $150 million in the case of L.A. and other major cities. Typically, the loan goes to teams as a stadium construction subsidy. The catch is, there is no team yet to receive the loan.

Both the loan and the Super Bowls must be approved by 24 of the 32 NFL owners. Leiweke said Wednesday that he hoped NFL officials would move fast and recommend approval in the next 30 to 60 days, with an owners’ vote to follow shortly thereafter.

If NFL owners approve the $150-million loan, the ownership group--AEG, Wasserman, Burkle and Roski--would underwrite the remaining stadium construction costs, $250 million to $300 million. That brings total stadium costs to $400 million to $450 million.

Meantime, the city would use its right of eminent domain to stitch together the required 20 acres, much of which is already owned by AEG.

The city--or perhaps the Community Redevelopment Agency--would then buy all 20 acres, including the pieces bought recently on behalf of the prospective ownership. Leiweke estimated that cost at $70 million to $100 million, to be paid with bond funds.

Developers ultimately would pay that money back from a combination of a ticket tax, sales tax generated by the venue and any excess property tax from the site. It is not clear how long the payback period would be, but Leiweke said taxpayers would be protected from paying for the stadium.

“We are committed to that,” he said. “But I think both us and the NFL believe this is a model we’re prepared to live with.

“We have to see if the economics work on this,” Leiweke said. “We’re still not there yet. This is a work in progress.”

Times staff writers Sam Farmer and Patrick McGreevy contributed to this report