NFL Bid Passed To Handful of Voters in Town

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About 100 people in the City of Industry could determine whether Los Angeles County gets its own professional football team.

They are the registered voters in that San Gabriel Valley city who will decide Jan. 20 whether to approve a $500 million bond issue with as much as $150 million going toward roads and other infrastructure improvements around a proposed 75,000-seat National Football League stadium.

The bond issue needs the approval of two-thirds of voters, and if they should fail to OK the measure, the city may not be able to go forward with the project despite assertions otherwise by developer Ed Roski Jr.’s Majestic Realty Co.

“We would have to take a closer look,” City Manager Kevin Radecki said of the stadium’s prospects if voters reject the bond. “I hope it will pass.”

Roski, who was involved in one of the region’s earlier failed attempts to bring an NFL team to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, hopes that his latest proposal will do better.

Last spring, the developer proposed building an $800 million project in the City of Industry. It would not only draw revenue from broadcast rights, ticket sales and luxury booths, but it would stand to profit because it would be part of a massive mixed-use project on 600 acres west of the Pomona (57/60) Freeway.

The stadium would be surrounded by nearly 3 million square feet of office, retail, medical, entertainment and restaurant space. The entire project could be approved by the city as early as February, if the bond measure passes.

John Semcken, project executive for Roski’s Majestic Realty, said Majestic is moving forward with its end of the project, including working on construction drawings and meeting with NFL officials.

He said it’s up to Industry to figure out a way to finance the infrastructure improvements should the bond measure fail. He noted Majestic worked out an agreement with the city last year that would pay back all the public bond monies used for stadium-related infrastructure improvements through ticket and parking taxes.

“It’s the city’s problem, not ours,” he said.

Semcken said that building the stadium will be paid for by, among other things, the selling of naming rights, partnerships and club suites. It also is being built into the side of a hill, saving an estimated $400 million in steel and construction costs to build the stadium seats.

Construction of the commercial component, he said, will commence sometime after work on the stadium has begun probably at a point when the economy has improved.


Critically important?

However, passage of the bond measure appears critical because an environmental impact report on the project released last year calls for a host of road improvements designed to lessen the impact of thousands of cars that would be generated by the games and the surrounding mixed-use attraction. Among other things, the EIR calls for widening dozens of streets, modifying medians, improving intersections and adding turn lanes.

In fact, the bond issue was made necessary only after Industry failed to get millions of tax dollars that could have been used for the infrastructure improvement by extending its expiring redevelopment program. Redevelopment programs allow cities to keep tax dollars that otherwise would go to other government entities.

Industry’s redevelopment bill in the state Legislature was sidelined in April in the face of opposition from two Los Angeles County supervisors and public employees. They complained any tax dollars kept by the redevelopment program would come at the expense of the county and its tax-funded services.

That set up the need for the bond issue. Since Industry is, as its name implies, mostly populated by businesses, it has only a handful of residents. As a result, those few people could determine L.A. County’s prospects for getting a football team.

While the city could theoretically approve the project even if the bond measure fails, experts say, such a failure could cause major delays by forcing officials to find other ways to pay for the improvements or cheaper ways to complete them. It also could open up the project to litigation from opponents, such as the nearby city of Walnut, which opposes the stadium and already has begun interviewing attorneys for a possible legal challenge.

“EIRs are funny things,” said Ivan Tether, a Pacific Palisades lawyer specializing in environmental law. The EIR document is legally binding and “is very powerful in that it gets the issues out before the public.”

Yet while developers and city officials appear determined to proceed with the project, Industry voters seem only vaguely aware of the weight on their shoulders.

Pete Cordero, 77, an Industry resident since 1982, said last week that he’d never heard of the stadium. “It would be great,” he said when told of it, adding that he would probably vote for the bond.

Alfredo Abdala, 53, on the other hand, said he was withholding judgment on the deal. “It would be nice as long as it doesn’t bother the people around. I’ll wait to see what they’re offering.”


Luring team

The effort to lure an NFL team to Southern California, the nation’s No. 2 television market, is the latest in a long string of unsuccessful attempts after the 1994 season when the Raiders left Los Angeles and the Rams left Anaheim.

At one point, in fact, no fewer than four separate venues were competing to attract a team: the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, and would-be stadiums in Carson and Anaheim. Roski was among the proponents in 1999 of a plan to bring an expansion team to the Coliseum, but the NFL chose Houston after the city paid a $700 million fee to the league.

Each site was gradually eliminated as a serious contender by the NFL or took itself out of the running, most recently Anaheim in 2007. League officials have, in the past, said privately that placing a team in the Los Angeles area is not a top priority.

Developers and city officials are betting that the Industry proposal may change that. The goal is to create a sort of “whole-game-day-experience” destination in which the sports and commercial venues feed off each other by attracting fans that will arrive early to shop and stay late to eat or take in a movie.

Though Majestic has been in touch with the NFL, Semcken said the company has been asked not to disclose specifics.

A league spokesman, Brian McCarthy, confirmed that the NFL has had talks with Roski’s company but declined to provide further details.

“We are continuing to monitor all developments in the Los Angeles area,” McCarthy said. “(The league) would like to return to the area at some point.”

Majestic has publicly promised that the stadium can be ready within three years of Roski’s acquisition of a team, which would play at another local venue, such as the Rose Bowl, until the Industry site is ready. Experts believe that a small-market team such as Buffalo, N.Y., or Jacksonville, Fla., would be among the most likely candidates.

In the meantime, according to Semcken, the development company is jumping through hoops for the NFL. Majestic has provided a detailed analysis of construction costs and commissioned an independent market study showing the location’s desirability for football.

Jeff Marks, chief operating officer of Premier Partnerships, a sports advisory and sales firm based in Los Angeles, believes it’s a matter of when not if the new stadium is built. He predicts the bad economy, however, may delay the beginning of construction until 2011 or 2012.

“Ed Roski fits the profile of an NFL owner, and there aren’t too many who have that pedigree,” he said. “You’ve got a great location with great freeway and public transportation access, as well as a local government willing to support it.”

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