Rose Bowl Officials Want Study to Be Done

Rose Bowl officials are poised to take another small step toward landing an NFL team.

They will meet with the Rose Bowl Operating Committee tonight and will ask that funds be allocated for an environmental impact report for a completely renovated Rose Bowl. The report would take roughly a year to assemble and would cost about $150,000. The Pasadena City Council also would need to approve the allocation.

“Realistically, you need to get your EIR done before any [stadium] deal can be officially approved for the city,” said Darryl Dunn, general manager of the Rose Bowl.

That means that even if a team was ready to relocate to L.A. and a financing plan was in place for a Rose Bowl renovation -- which would cost at least $400 million -- developers would be precluded from breaking ground on the project until the environmental impact report was completed.

“We wouldn’t want to initiate the EIR until we had a confident understanding of exactly what’s being proposed,” Pasadena Mayor Bill Bogaard said. “We don’t know that yet.”

Dunn was among the Pasadena officials who met Wednesday with a group of NFL owners in Palm Beach, Fla., to update them on the status of the stadium-renovation proposal. The point man for the Rose Bowl is John Moag, a Maryland investment banker who helped clear the way for the Cleveland Browns to move to Baltimore.

“The NFL wants to come back to Los Angeles in the right stadium,” Dunn said, “and we’re trying to solidify our stadium’s future. We have a mutual need.”

Although the Rose Bowl group is expected to attend the NFL meetings in Phoenix in two weeks, it might not be ready to make a formal presentation to league owners.