Rose Bowl a temporary home for NFL team?
Rose Bowl officials this week said Pasadena would conduct a full environmental review if the city decides to proceed with tentative plans to host an NFL team in the coming years.
The report would cost up to $300,000 and take an estimated nine months, meaning there is no chance of a team coming to town in 2012. The prospects of that were slight anyway, as developers of proposed permanent stadiums in downtown Los Angeles and the City of Industry have not convinced a team to relocate to Los Angeles.
Bringing an NFL team to the Rose Bowl on a temporary basis is attractive to city and stadium officials, since Pasadena is facing a tight budget and the Rose Bowl Operating Co. is trying to close a $16-million funding gap in its ongoing $156-million renovation of the stadium.
A 2004 NFL economic impact report found that if the Rose Bowl hosted a pro-football team, the games would generate $3.1 million in spending on tickets, concessions, hotel rooms and other purchases in Pasadena, and would deliver $140,273 in taxes to the city. A single Super Bowl game could generate spending of $4.3 million in the city.
The economic impacts to Bob Hope Airport in Burbank and retail centers in neighboring Glendale could also be significant.
But residents who live near the Rose Bowl, represented by the Linda Vista/Annandale Assn., want to block a team from coming at all, saying the tens of thousands of fans who would attend the games would reduce access to Arroyo Seco recreational facilities and bring more trash and traffic.
Darryl Dunn, chief executive and general manager of the Rose Bowl Operating Co., said Tuesday that the City Council would have to change a municipal law to allow NFL games, increasing the number of so-called “displacement events” of 20,000 people or more that are allowed to take place each year in the Arroyo.
The current number is 12, but an NFL team would likely host 10 games a year, in addition to already planned events, such as the Rose Bowl, UCLA Bruin games and concerts.
“If we want to increase the number of displacement events, then we would have to do a full [Environmental Impact Report],” Dunn said.
The city is winding up work on a preliminary traffic study of the area.
Dunn said the decision to launch a full study would depend on three factors: whether the NFL or other entity would help fund the study, how much revenue a team would bring in, and how likely it is that the NFL would select the Rose Bowl, as opposed to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, as a temporary home for a team.
Dunn said his organization’s main priority is hosting the Rose Bowl game Jan. 2, but once that passes, officials will focus again on the possibility of bringing a pro team to Pasadena on a temporary basis.