Rose Bowl a Thorny Issue

When a Rose Bowl official explained to a room of residents from Pasadena’s scenic Arroyo Seco neighborhood Saturday that proposed renovation of the stadium was not tied to luring a professional football team to the area, he was met with a lone, sarcastic “Ha!”

This was, after all, a gathering of some of the people most skeptical of the Rose Bowl face-lift and its subsequent effect on attracting a National Football League team.

The group of about 50 residents met in the stadium’s second-floor press box with Pasadena City Councilman Steven Madison and Rose Bowl officials in what was the first town hall-style meeting since a draft environmental report was released Feb. 2 detailing some of the effects on the community if an NFL team were to call Pasadena home.

The 83-year-old stadium is antiquated in several areas -- from its cramped seating to its scoreboard, which would be considered minuscule by today’s standards -- and would require hundreds of millions of dollars to renovate in order to attract long-term tenants to generate money for the city again.

Officials say updating the Rose Bowl is their primary concern and that inviting a football team to help pay for it is only one of several options, albeit the only one that’s been seriously considered.

“We’re in a situation where we’re asking, ‘How can we save this football stadium,’ ” Madison said. “So if a football team comes along and offers $400 million to renovate the stadium, we’d almost be derelict not to listen.”

But for many of the owners of nearby hillside homes and tony mansions, a football team would generate congestion and noisepollution. Some said the proposed redesign of the Rose Bowl -- which includes construction of luxury suites boosting the height of the structure -- would destroy the stadium’s historical aesthetic.

Steve Schweitzer, 64, has attended every Rose Bowl game since 1950 and is a UCLA season ticket holder. Nevertheless, Schweitzer said professional football would bring in an undesirable fan element similar to rowdy Oakland Raider loyalists.

“It’s not just Raider fans,” Schweitzer said. “Philadelphia Eagle fans cheer when someone gets injured.... These are rough stadiums. These are rough people. Do we want these people here?”

Anticipating such a reaction, Madison said that local officials told the NFL of the city’s resistance to the Oakland Raiders.

“We even tried to guarantee that they never play here,” said Madison, who was told by the NFL that the league couldn’t prevent the Raiders from playing as a Super Bowl team.

Jon Dudley has lived in the area for 14 years and also says he attends the Rose Bowl, but he’d rather “let the stadium slowly demise.” Dudley said the Rose Bowl area should be shaped into an athletic facility for the community.

Michael Hurley, president of the Linda Vista Annandale Neighborhood Assn., said he would take a wait-and-see approach.

“How do we know if it’s good or bad if we don’t even know what the final proposal is yet?” Hurley said.

It is up to the City Council to approve a final environmental assessment and then submit a proposal to the NFL, which has expressed great interest in returning to the L.A. market. Competition is fierce, however, with Carson, Anaheim and the Coliseum in downtown L.A. vying for a team. The NFL is likely to consider which stadium offers the best deal for a football franchise, whether it’s an expansion team or an existing one.

Renovation of the Rose Bowl would take two years and cost about $400 million, officials said.

In addition to the luxury suites, the new design would feature a new concourse and plaza outside the stadium. Seating would be reduced from 92,000 to 65,000, though an additional 10,000 seats could be added for special events.