Backers Bet on 2nd Tier of Sports

For athletes who play second fiddle on the American scene -- soccer players, shot putters, cyclists -- the new Home Depot Center in Carson is, as one of them put it, “a mecca.”

The complex, which opens today, features matching soccer and tennis stadiums, a world-class track, practice fields and, soon, the continent’s only indoor velodrome.

Rarely have 85 acres and $150 million in private money been devoted to a facility outside the realm of football, basketball and baseball.

But if athletes are sold on the Home Depot Center, it must prove itself in other ways.

Residents wonder if it will be the kind of neighbor that brings too much noise and traffic. They are suspicious of deals cut to lease state-owned land for the project.

Civic leaders, meanwhile, are waiting to see if it can attract shops and restaurants to their overlooked suburb, best known for years of political scandals and as a mooring site for the Goodyear blimp. If the center succeeds, it could boost their prospects for an NFL team.

Even the owners -- the same company that built Staples Center -- have questions. Such a venture, sports business experts say, has never been profitable.

“People within our own company thought we were nuts,” said Tim Leiweke, president and chief executive of AEG. “No one knows what to expect.”

Four years ago, Leiweke set out with modest plans to build a 27,000-seat stadium for the Galaxy, which had played in the yawning Rose Bowl.

AEG leased a chunk of the Cal State Dominguez Hills campus near the intersection of the Harbor and San Diego freeways. Then, wanting to make use of the facility beyond soccer season, Leiweke had what he called a “goofy idea”: Could a temporary tennis court be laid over the turf?

The architects said no, and instead gave him an estimate for what would become a 13,000-seat tennis stadium. At the same time, the U.S. Soccer Federation announced its search for a new training site.

Leiweke began to imagine the project in a different vein. All he had to do was convince his boss, billionaire financier Philip F. Anschutz.

For a man who owns, not only an arena but also the Kings, Galaxy and other Major League Soccer teams, Anschutz is not a particularly avid fan, his executives say. His wife is the one who cheers loudest at hockey games.

Still, Anschutz cottoned to Leiweke’s proposal. He envisioned a complex bustling with athletes ranging from kids to professionals.

So Anschutz, who has not spoken to reporters in years, became uncharacteristically involved -- more so than with the $407-million Staples Center -- overseeing everything from construction to landscaping. “He had certain flowers and trees he felt would fit well,” Leiweke said.

More and more tenants came aboard, each with specific needs.

The soccer federation required practice fields. So did the San Diego Chargers, who will hold summer camp on the grounds. The national federations for tennis, cycling and track agreed to establish training sites there.

As the project became an unusually large Olympic-style center, AEG lured major events, ranging from beach volleyball to women’s pro tennis. The company also booked music concerts in the main stadium.

Residents grew worried.

“The number of events kept changing,” said Rita Boggs, a city planning commissioner. “So many things that were not included in the first place.”

Boggs filed a lawsuit that unsuccessfully challenged the environmental impact report. Another was filed in July 2001 by homeowners in University Heights, whose backyards bump against the complex. They were led by Gil Smith, a former Carson mayor and among those who established the university in the mid-1960s.

“How close are we?” the soft-spoken Smith asked. “I can throw a rock into the soccer stadium from my property.”

The suit was settled six months later, with residents winning a number of concessions. Now they say AEG has failed to comply.

Threat of Hooligans

The roar of bulldozers and trucks has resonated through the neighborhood, Smith claims, and dust has coated swimming pools. The soccer stadium, an impressive structure topped by billowing white canopies, only reinforces the threat of impending crowds.

It doesn’t help that the principal tenant is a soccer team. Some residents cannot help but envision hooligans and empty beer cans strewn across their lawns.

“It has created a lot of anxiety,” Smith said. “We feel like we’re in real trouble here.”

As a member of a university advisory board, Smith has additional concerns about the school’s devoting so much of its 346 acres to the venture, leaving the university little room to grow.

AEG has programming rights over the 85 acres of facilities it built. In addition, it has access to 40 acres of school facilities and parking lots.

Some on campus worry about becoming “Home Depot U.” President James E. Lyons acknowledged these concerns: “The magnitude gets kind of frightening.”

For years, the school wanted to make better use of the acreage, which was blanketed by geranium fields. When the NFL looked to Carson as a stadium site in the late 1990s, administrators let it be known that they could accommodate a training camp. Soon afterward, they hooked up with AEG.

Their 55-year lease calls for a $1-million contribution over the first four years to the university’s foundation. It also requires an annual rent, based on gate and parking receipts, which starts at $200,000 and is expected to double within several years.

Smith argues that Cal State Dominguez Hills should have demanded a piece of the center’s $70-million naming rights deal.

But in a fiscally tough era, the university, with its $90-million annual budget, needed revenue.

“In comparison to the cuts we’re experiencing, it’s not a significant amount,” said George Pardon, vice president for administration and finance. “But any time you can get half a million dollars in flexible money, it helps.”

There are other payoffs, he said. AEG refurbished the school’s baseball and softball fields. It will hand over the soccer stadium for commencement, previously held at the Forum in Inglewood.

More significant, administrators said, each sporting event broadcast from the site amounts to a television commercial, potentially boosting the profile of a largely commuter campus that has 13,500 students and a name-recognition problem.

The school was named for one of the area’s founding families, and, as Pardon said: “It could be anywhere in the state.”

One way of gaining recognition, Lyons said, is “having a world-class, internationally known facility on our campus.”

As administrators reached this conclusion, another debate sprung up in City Hall.

Much as the school does, this largely industrial community of 90,000 wants to be noticed. “Prestige and a very positive focus on Carson,” is how John Wogan, president of the Chamber of Commerce, put it.

Though AEG did not need Carson’s approval, Leiweke was mindful of criticism leveled during the Staples Center development. He arranged meetings at which residents could voice concerns.

Officials say AEG made concessions. The playing surfaces of both stadiums were sunk below ground, lowering the profiles of the bleachers, and the white canopies are intended to contain noise. AEG will pay for extra sheriff’s deputies on surrounding streets during events.

“They said they wouldn’t go forward without the city’s support,” Mayor Daryl Sweeney recalled. “I don’t know if that was true ... but they did everything I asked them to do in terms of reaching out to the community.”

Funding Questions

But nothing goes smoothly in a town plagued by corruption scandals, including Sweeney’s upcoming federal trial on charges that he solicited and accepted bribes from trash companies.

Opponents of the development note that Sweeney received campaign contributions from subcontractors associated with the Home Depot and Staples Center projects.

The donations were legal and properly reported, AEG spokesman Michael Roth said. “Our organization takes an active role in each of the communities where we do business.”

AEG eventually got the city’s blessing, albeit in a 3-2 vote. Now, proponents hope the complex will boost the sagging tax base. “Carson has two chain restaurants, Sizzler and Tony Roma’s....We need more retail shopping outlets,” Sweeney said.

Revitalizing the City

Already, a motel and gas station have been planned for nearby, developments that officials said would not have come about without the new complex. At two strip malls across the street, shop owners can sense a change.

“There are a lot of rumors going around,” said Yoonhee Choi, owner of the Big Burger stand. “They say the city will tear all this down and build new buildings.”

Councilman Jim Dear doesn’t mind if the old, fading malls feel a pinch.

“They need a face-lift,” he said, then quickly added: “The businesses in there, I hope they will be retained and the shopping centers will be cleaned up.”

Either way, he points out, the catalyst for redevelopment won’t cost the city a dime. Instead, the bottom line falls to AEG.

As the Sports Business Journal pointed out in recent issues, the Home Depot Center represents the largest-ever private investment in Olympic-type sports.

Leiweke concedes that, “if you’re in the business of making money, you don’t do this.” But he insists the complex can succeed.

The naming deal with Home Depot will pay an average of $7 million a year over a decade. A dozen corporate partners will pay $9 million annually to put up signs on the property.

AEG hopes to generate $5.5 million a year from luxury suites in the soccer and tennis stadiums, and another $5 million from parking, concessions and other revenue streams.

The $26.5-million annual total should cover construction and operating costs, AEG said.

With Carson back in the running for an NFL team, it is unclear if AEG will seek to be involved with a football stadium on nearby property. But Leiweke advises league executives to take note. “This formula will work,” he said.

No one hopes he is right more than the athletes who will compete there.

Runners and jumpers are first in line. Today’s Home Depot Track & Field Invitational, broadcast by ESPN2, features sprinters Maurice Green and Ana Guevara and hurdler Allen Johnson. Galaxy players will have their home opener Saturday. Through most of his career, defender Alexi Lalas has watched his game struggle as a stepchild in America.

The complex is “a cathedral, a mecca,” he said. “This is going to expose a lot of people to soccer in a completely different way.”

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Times staff writer Paul Pringle contributed to this report.