Rose Bowl Unveils Plan to Lure NFL Team

Rose Bowl officials, convinced they can soothe powerful Pasadena historical preservationists while meeting the needs of a modern NFL team, unveiled plans Tuesday for a $500-million reconstruction project aimed at bringing pro football back to the Los Angeles area.

Investment banker John Moag, who is leading the charge to rebuild the 81-year-old stadium, said a series of private meetings with the preservationists has made them “advocates, not adversaries.” In his view, the hardest part of the process is over.

Even so, Sue Mossman, executive director of Pasadena Heritage, said it’s premature to classify her historical preservationist group as an advocate of the project. Other significant challenges remain. The National Football League still needs to deal with the complicated process of bringing a team here -- by relocation or expansion -- and owners need to be sold on the virtues of a stadium plan that doubles as a preservation project. And then there is the obstacle of delivering a realistic financing plan.

Moag, who helped pave the way for the Cleveland Browns’ move to Baltimore, accepted the Rose Bowl assignment last summer at the behest of the league. He’s working for free now, but will receive as much as $5 million from the league if he secures at least a 15-year commitment from an NFL team.

Los Angeles has been without an NFL team since the Raiders and Rams left after the 1994 season, and league owners and executives consider it a priority to put a team back in the nation’s No. 2 television market. It would almost certainly be a relocated team -- the San Diego Chargers, Indianapolis Colts and New Orleans Saints are leading candidates -- although NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue has not ruled out expanding beyond the current 32 teams.

Moag said his group has not had any discussions with teams, nor does it plan to.

“This is a lateral deal between the city and community of Pasadena and the National Football League,” he said, speaking at a news conference on the Rose Bowl steps. “It is the league that decides.”

But first he needs to line up things locally.

“We certainly acknowledged the design team’s efforts to approach this from a more preservation-minded perspective,” said Mossman of Pasadena Heritage. “We were encouraged, and saw the new stadium proposal as a step in the right direction. But there remain critically important questions in terms of the effect on the arroyo as a natural environment and our largest public park, which is used by thousands.”

The design essentially would preserve the landmark shell of the stadium while reconfiguring the interior.

Moag and his associates are looking to succeed where so many others have failed. Less than a year has passed since a small coalition of businessmen abandoned a plan for a state-of-the-art stadium by Staples Center.

Before that came bids to construct grandiose NFL digs at the Coliseum, Hollywood Park, Dodger Stadium and in Carson, among others. In fact, the Coliseum and Carson plans are still under consideration.

Although no detailed financing plan has been released, Moag said it does not involve public money other than a 10% ticket tax. He said the stadium would be financed in large part by deposits on 140 luxury suites -- some of which would cost as much as $300,000 annually -- personal-seat licenses and a $150-million “G-3” stadium loan from the league.

Naming rights would be sold, although only for the field and not for the stadium. If a rebuilt Rose Bowl were to retain its national historic monument status, it would be eligible for a 20% tax credit, something that has not been factored into the current financing plan.

“Not only is this the most beautiful sporting venue in the country, it will become the most powerful revenue venue in the country,” Moag said. “That’s because it will be home to three incredibly powerful and attractive sports assets, namely the NFL, the Tournament of Roses and UCLA.”

Approval Sought

The next step for Moag is to get approval from the Pasadena City Council to seek a non-binding deal with the league. The council is set to consider the matter May 12.

Moag also would have get two commitments from the NFL: to provide funds to renovate the stadium and to guarantee that a team will eventually play there.

The Rose Bowl group hopes to get that commitment at the league meetings May 20-21 in Philadelphia.

“The NFL would like this project to move sooner rather than later,” Moag said. “Yet, concurrently, they certainly have not identified any team that is going to move.”

The project will require a minimum of 23 months, and the earliest a team could play in the Rose Bowl is the 2006 season.

Moag said Tagliabue has seen the design and “is committed to making this a preservation project.”

HOK, a leading stadium-design firm brought on board by Moag, crafted a plan for a new Rose Bowl that includes more than twice the square footage yet reduces the seating capacity from 92,000 to 68,000, which is more in line with NFL standards. The stadium would be expandable to about 75,000 seats for major events such as Rose Bowl games, Super Bowls and international soccer.

At first glance, the stadium looks like a cleaner version of the existing Rose Bowl.

To achieve the extra space, builders would go down and not up. The redesign includes a wide concourse that rings the stadium and is below ground level, yet open to the sky. Club patrons would take an escalator down to field level, then walk onto the playing surface and up to their seats. Suite holders would take elevators up to the two levels of luxury boxes lining the stadium opposite the press box.

A Nod to History

In another nod to the history of the building, the floor of the stadium would be changed from a rectangle to an oval. There might be an underground parking structure, although the plans for that could be scrubbed because of the prohibitive expense; such a structure could cost as much as $25,000 per space.

The neon Rose Bowl sign at the south entrance would be retained. There would be a “horizon level,” an open-air level above the rim of the stadium but below the suites, to give spectators a view of the San Gabriel Mountains.

Designers took pains to preserve -- and sometimes resurrect -- historic touches of the stadium.

Said HOK architect Jon Knight: “We thought about the existing building rather than ignoring it.”

Among the unanswered questions about the proposal is whether an NFL team could sell suites that far from the field -- almost all stadiums position them closer and lower -- and whether a bowl-shaped stadium would work in a league where spectators pay top dollar to be on top of the action, as they are in more boxy, vertical venues.

Moag said he’s confident his group has overcome parking or traffic difficulties.

Proponents speculate there may be as many as 25 major events each year, which would be second in the nation behind the Meadowlands in New Jersey, which is home to the New York Giants and Jets of the NFL. That is sure to make some neighbors of the Rose Bowl skeptical of the project.

Moag said he and others in the group plan to spend the next month answering the questions from community groups, incorporating their input and easing their concerns. Then he will make the presentation to the league.

“They’ll either buy it or they don’t buy it,” he said, referring to team owners. “We can’t do a whole lot better than what we’ve done.”