Arena Attempts to Stay Current
The ever-increasing demand for luxury has helped shorten the life span of numerous arenas and stadiums built in the last three decades -- most notably the Miami Arena, which failed to anticipate the coming boom in luxury suites and lost its major league tenants after only 11 seasons.
Which is why the company that owns Staples Center has been seeking to fend off the ravages of time, only six years after the $403-million arena opened south of Los Angeles’ downtown core.
Working around a packed summer schedule of concerts and the X Games, AEG has nearly completed work on new high-tech video boards, cushier seats and plusher carpeting. The $10-million project is on top of about $1 million in cosmetic fixes made each year since the building opened.
The newest improvements might be lost on some fans, but privately held AEG and its billionaire owner, Philip Anschutz, see them as necessary to position the building for its long-expected role as anchor for a massive entertainment district planned for parking lots near the Convention Center.
City officials have approved the planned $1-billion development, though no construction timetable has been announced.
AEG expects to break ground in the fall on a 1,200-room, 55-story hotel and condominium complex just north of the arena. AEG also envisions a 7,000-seat live theater, upscale shops and restaurants, and a TV studio where program hosts could interact with crowds, “beaming programming live from downtown L.A. to the world,” said AEG President Tim Leiweke.
Staples and AEG have generated their share of controversy over the years. The City Council ultimately rejected Anschutz’s initial request for $67 million in construction financing. Competing hotel operators are grumbling about $177 million in subsidies that the City Council recently approved for the AEG-financed hotel project. Proponents defend it as necessary to help the under-utilized Convention Center book more business by dramatically increasing the number of nearby hotel rooms for convention-goers.
The $10-million renovation comes as Staples weathers its weakest year financially, having lost the last NHL season in a labor dispute -- since resolved -- and the Lakers and Clippers having missed the NBA playoffs.
But Leiweke said the facility has continued to meet its debt obligations -- it still owes $280 million for construction costs -- as well as its guarantee to suiteholders for a minimum number of attractions.
The arena generally is bustling by industry standards, uniquely serving as home to three franchises from the major sports while also booking concerts, boxing, pro wrestling, arena football and, beginning this year, the circus.
Excluding last season, Staples had been booking an average of 240 events annually, sometimes two a day. Few arenas book more than 200 revenue-generating events, architects and designers said.
Staples is buoyed by its location, in the middle of a booming region that can support 160 luxury boxes -- each generating an average of $300,000 annually.
Because of its size, number of seats and wealth of suites, “Staples just wouldn’t make sense in any other city,” said Bill Crockett, a San Francisco sports facility architect.
Carol E. Schatz, president of the Central City Assn. of Los Angeles, a downtown booster organization, said Staples is a “catalytic project” that has given people a reason to venture into neighborhoods that largely turned into ghost towns after the workday concluded.
“We had a 9-to-5 downtown prior to Staples,” Schatz said. “Staples immediately moved us to 9 or 10 p.m., and our goal is to add an hour every year until we get a 24-hour downtown.”
Urban planners will debate whether Staples sparked a renaissance in South Park or simply accelerated redevelopment. But with loft conversions and other housing rapidly coming onto the downtown market, there is at least one indication that the 24-hour clock is about to start ticking: A Ralphs supermarket is scheduled to open by early 2007 at the nearby corner of 9th and Flower streets.
“That’s a good first sign that it’s working in Los Angeles,” said Richard Longstreth, a George Washington University professor who has written two books about Los Angeles. “People need food more than they need arenas.”
Other cities have sought to use an arena or stadium as a redevelopment engine -- with occasionally nightmarish results. And the proposals continue.
On Friday, Oakland Athletics managing partner Lewis Wolff proposed a $300-million to $400-million baseball park that would be tied to a retail and housing development. “Everyone benefits if we can take an older area and recast it into a more modern activity,” Wolff told reporters.
That wish echoes what high-tech magnate Paul Allen envisioned 15 years ago when he agreed to finance and build the Rose Garden on a patch of city-owned land in Portland, Ore.
The NBA Trail Blazers’ home arena was a state-of-the-art facility when it opened two years before Staples, and it was envisioned as the spark for urban renewal in the surrounding Rose Quarter.
But thanks largely to an uncooperative economy and an NBA team that alienated fans with frequent legal problems, the arena stumbled badly and failed to generate the revenue needed to pay for the constant painting, patching and remodeling that is needed to keep an arena looking fresh. The arena also lacked what Staples has -- a location that spurs interest from other developers with an interest in downtown redevelopment.
Allen finally walked away from his investment late last year after pushing the arena into U.S. Bankruptcy Court. Though the building remains in use, civic leaders say the new owners -- arena creditors scrambling to hold on to their investment -- will have to spend as much as $50 million to return the facility to NBA standards.
Like a Hollywood star with a handsome chin or delicate cheekbones, Staples has been blessed with what sports arena architect Michael Hallmark calls “superior bone structure” -- designer-speak for a building that, with face-lifts, will have a better chance of surviving.
Even proven stars, though, occasionally need major surgery.
In Phoenix, taxpayers and the NBA’s Suns recently shared the $67-million cost of an extensive renovation and expansion of America West Arena, a state-of-the-art facility when it opened in 1992.
The arena added an outdoor lounge area and other amenities that cater to upscale fans. Now it is readying a $1-million children’s playground designed to lure more families into less expensive seats.
And, as Boston Garden fans learned, a strong heritage no longer is enough.
“A rusted ’57 Chevy isn’t going to be appealing unless you restore it,” said Hallmark, who helped design Staples Center. “Fans want to know that you’re paying attention to the details, that you know what’s cool.”
Thus the constant primping, to the tune of about $1 million a year, for new paint, artwork, kitchen updates and the like.
“When it comes to looks, arenas are competing with everything [fans] see, from the shopping mall to the newly upgraded airport terminal,” said Crockett, the sports facility architect.
When a building can no longer compete, it might suffer the same fate as Seattle’s Kingdome, which was imploded 24 years after it opened in 1976, or Maryland’s Capital Centre, which lasted 23 years.
Longstreth suspects that the short shelf lives grew out of World War II, when “this country got very good at large-scale construction on a temporary basis.” Postwar tax law also encouraged building owners to consider structures with shorter lifespans, he said.
Architect Crockett pointed to a proliferation of “one size fits all” stadium designs, which “ended up making no one completely happy.”
Simple economics now demand that sports facilities be designed with the major tenant in mind.
“We concentrate on designs that will make it a great facility for 90% of the important revenue-generating events,” Crockett said. “You have to keep your priorities straight.”
Staples’ improvement project includes new carpeting, the reupholstering of 14,000 arena seats (the fabric is changing from purple to black), hanging the latest high-tech LED video screens from the ceiling and replacing outdoor signs.
Leiweke argues that Staples’ success can be measured by the building boom -- projects linked to AEG and those unrelated -- underway in its South Park neighborhood.
“You can see the construction in and around this building,” he said of the estimated 4 million square feet of residential, commercial and retail space now proposed for development in the South Park neighborhood.
But Crockett cautioned against expecting a building, even a well-designed one, to carry too much of the load: “Architects can do a lot, but [successful redevelopment] is still a matter of public policy.”
