L.A.'s Play for NFL Raises Concerns

By Jim Newton and Steve Hymon

May 19, 2006 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writers

A proposal to upgrade Exposition Park and the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum to pave the way for a return of pro football sailed through public approvals Thursday. But its progress masked quieter concerns about the project, which some insiders warned would deliver few tangible benefits to the Los Angeles city and county governments even as it would require them to invest in the park and stadium.

Critics of the proposal have not said much publicly, for fear of upending the long-awaited return of professional football to Los Angeles more than a decade after the Rams and Raiders left. But in many private and some on-the-record conversations, they questioned whether the terms were smart for the city and county.

Under the deal being discussed, the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency would pledge $25 million to pay for public improvements to the area around the Coliseum right away and would reimburse the city for $112.6 million more in projects later if the stadium produced enough tax revenue to support them.

That is so-called tax “increment” money, meaning that it would be generated by the increased property taxes on the stadium; in this case, however, the city would not see the full benefit of that increase because it would funnel the money back into improvements around the stadium.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and other city and county leaders have pledged not to commit public money to the project, but critics complain that the increment financing as proposed represents a substantial public investment.

“We can’t forget our basic obligations to our constituents,” Councilman Ed Reyes said. “We could be forgoing opportunities to keep millions of dollars in the city and in the neighborhood.”

Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, though emphasizing that he supported bringing the NFL back to Los Angeles, said he too was bothered by the proposed deal.

“It’s clear to me that the NFL and their supporters are still looking for the county and the city to use ... public tax dollars to help finance this deal,” he said. “Such an arrangement would be fiscally irresponsible and contrary to the promises that have been publicly made by most public officials involved in this project.”

Local governments sometimes do forgo their tax increment, but only rarely and usually for projects that carry extraordinary public benefits. Yaroslavsky questioned whether this deal qualified.

“This is not a children’s hospital we’re building here,” he said. “This is not a high school or university. This is a for-profit business. They ought to pay taxes.

“If everybody did this,” he said, “we’d have no taxes.”

Those concerns, along with those of preservation advocates who warn that the proposed renovation of the Coliseum could threaten its historic stature, rumbled along the margins of the stadium debate Thursday, but did not derail the project’s speedy trip through the city and county bureaucracies.

The Community Redevelopment Agency’s seven-member board, which argued for hours over a downtown high-rise proposal that was not even up for a vote, dispatched the stadium proposal in a few minutes, unanimously agreeing to the terms of the proposed agreement.

Later on Thursday, the City Council’s special committee on the subject also granted quick approval. The full council is expected to take it up today so that the results of its work can be forwarded to National Football League owners who are meeting next week in Denver, where they are expected to consider selecting the Coliseum, a site in Anaheim or both for design and engineering studies. The speed of local decision-making, said Councilman Bernard C. Parks, whose district includes the Coliseum and who is an ardent supporter of the proposal, was meant to “send a clear message to the NFL” that Los Angeles is ready for a team.

Parks and other defenders of the financing arrangement said the tax dollars would be spent in the surrounding area only because of the stadium construction, and emphasized that no general fund money from the city or county would help pay for the stadium. The projected $800-million stadium construction cost would be borne by the NFL.

Parks argued that the other benefits of the stadium -- potential development of hotels or restaurants in the neighborhood surrounding Exposition Park and the lure of future Super Bowls -- justify the forgoing of tax increment money.

“The community is going to get all that,” Parks said.

The draft agreements circulated Thursday separate the public improvements into two categories -- “initial” improvements and “extended” ones. The first improvements, which come to $25 million, include widening streets and adding turn lanes near the Coliseum; demolition and site clearing, as well as removing asbestos as part of the stadium’s renovation, would later be reimbursed by tax revenue generated by the football team.

The extended improvements, totaling $112.6 million, include parking structures, fencing, a promenade and even a light-rail station near the stadium. Officials on Thursday referred to those projects as the “wish list.”

Although the public financing of the facility attracted most concern Thursday, some also questioned whether the proposed stadium would damage the historic stature of the Coliseum, home of two Summer Olympics and scores of other memorable moments in Los Angeles sports history. The stadium proposal under consideration involves constructing a facility within the walls of the existing Coliseum. But some worry that the new stadium would overshadow its host.

Chicago officials for years tried to build a stadium for that city’s NFL team, the Bears, before settling on a massive overhaul of Soldier Field. Architects promised that they were saving one of the city’s great landmarks. When it reopened in 2003, the old stadium’s Doric columns were dwarfed by a massive new bowl of seats. Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of the Interior stripped the facility of its status as a historic landmark.

Preservation advocates in Los Angeles fear that the same could happen to the Coliseum.

“We reviewed these plans in 2003 and our board voted to support the project. At that point we hoped that the project would get better in terms of its preserving more of the historic features. It hasn’t,” said Linda Dishman, executive director of the Los Angeles Conservancy. “What they’ve come back with actually preserves less. It was a tough decision and heavily debated because everyone wants the Coliseum to have an active life, and in many ways this would do it, but we felt like we were going right up to the edge of what’s acceptable.”

On Thursday, Villaraigosa acknowledged that some people were raising questions about details of the deal with the NFL but said he was confident they would be resolved.

“There are going to be some who are asking questions,” Villaraigosa said. “It’s important to ask, answer and resolve those questions. But I believe, at the end of the day, there’s a consensus here that goes well beyond anything we’ve seen in a very long time.”

As the proposal rocketed through the CRA and the City Council panel, critics also argued that the rush of activity precluded thoughtful review of its complex provisions. At the CRA, board members were handed a new draft of the agreement as they turned to that page on their agenda for the day. Some of the points, their staff told them, had been finalized only an hour earlier.

Pat Lynch, general manager of the Coliseum, dismissed complaints about the rushed process, noting that the debate over bringing football back to Los Angeles has been underway for years. “These allegations that this is being jammed through ... that’s nuts,” he said.

But Yaroslavsky, a member of the Coliseum Commission, disagreed.

“This is moving very fast, and largely out of the public eye,” he said. “I’ve seen motions to adjourn get more thorough discussion than this has received.”

Times staff writer Alan Abrahamson contributed to this report.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Coliseum cost breakdown

If the NFL were to select the Coliseum for a football team, local governments and the Community Redevelopment Agency would provide about $25 million to pay for the following improvements:

$7 million: Site improvements, including demolition, clearing, fencing and landscaping.

* $4 million: Traffic improvements, including right-turn lanes and road widening on Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Vermont Ave. and Figueroa St.

* $4 million: Exposition Park lighting.

* $4 million: Asbestos removal, site improvements and preparation.

* $0.25 million: Security surveillance cameras.

* $5.78 million: “Soft costs” calculated as 30% of the above expenditures.

In addition, the following projects could be funded from additional taxes that would be generated by the NFL’s presence at the Coliseum. Individual project costs are not available, but the total cost is estimated to be $112.6 million.

* Trousdale light-rail station

* MLK promenade

* Canopies

* Corner park conversion (MLK and Vermont)

* Fence

* Improvements to existing parking lots

* Publicly owned marquee signage

* MLK streetscape

* Museum walk

* Parking structures

* Playing fields next to the area

* Site utilities and improvements