It might be hard to believe, but the overhaul of UCLA’s
football program might not be over yet. This time, however,
Dan Guerrero has nothing to do with it.
Last month, the Rose Bowl unveiled a $500 million renovation
plan for the famed flowered home of Bruin football in hopes of
creating a stadium able to lure an NFL team.
“Pasadena is in the final stages of preparing an offer for
the NFL,” John Moag, CEO of the Baltimore-based sports and
entertainment investment banking firm Moag and Company, said.
Moag was hired by the Rose Bowl last fall to put together a
renovation plan and proposal for the NFL. Well-known in the sports
investment community for bringing the Cleveland Browns (later the
Ravens) to Baltimore in 1995, a feat such as this would not be his
first.
If the plan succeeds, a more important question for UCLA
football fans remains: What about the Bruins?
“Sharing the Rose Bowl with the NFL is not
insurmountable,” said Associate Athletic Director of
Facilities Ken Weiner. “But the construction would be the
only problem. As a tenant, if there are reasons that would
interrupt us from playing our games, then the Rose Bowl would need
us to find a comparable location.”
A conservative estimate for construction length is 23 months.
Planned perfectly, only one Rose Bowl game would need to be
displaced. Regardless of when construction begins and ends,
however, two Bruin seasons would have to be played elsewhere.
UCLA’s seven-year lease with the Rose Bowl expires in
November, and considerations for both construction issues and the
idea of sharing the site with a professional team have been made in
creating the new lease, according to Weiner.
“UCLA is a critical part of the Rose Bowl,” said
Darryl Dunn, general manager of the Rose Bowl. “We are
exploring the possibility to phase construction or stop
construction in August and begin in January, but we don’t
know the feasibility of that.”
Phased construction has been successfully completed at Ohio
State University’s Ohio Stadium, which was under construction
for three years on a schedule that did not require relocating
football games. There, the $200 million project was 80 percent
financed by the sale of luxury boxes and club season tickets.
According to Moag, however, phasing the construction of the Rose
Bowl “could make the project extraordinarily lengthy and
expensive.”
Since the Los Angeles Galaxy moved their home field from the
Rose Bowl to the Home Depot Center in Carson, UCLA remains the only
team to call the stadium home. Financially, it is in both Pasadena
and the Rose Bowl’s best interest to retain the Bruins.
According to Dunn, in the past dozen years, lack of a steady
revenue source for the stadium has required over $32 million in
investments by the city of Pasadena to maintain the venue.
“There is no viable way we can pay for improvements
without the city subsidizing them,” Dunn said.
“We’re looking to find a way to put private money into
the stadium, and the NFL would be such a source.”
Final approval of both the design and NFL proposal is pending by
the Rose Bowl Operating Committee, which maintains the daily
operations of the stadium, as well as the Pasadena City Council. At
the time of publishing, the city council was in a closed session
regarding the issue, and if a consensus can be arrived at a public
meeting May 19, a final decision will be one step closer.
“Monday night’s meeting isn’t going to be an
approval of the deal or specific terms, but it will decide
negotiating parameters under which a deal could be made,”
said Pasadena Mayor Bill Bogaard.
Final approval could take anywhere from three weeks to three
months, according to Bogaard. A mutually proposed transaction will
have to be approved between the NFL and Pasadena and then return to
the council for approval yet again. Before construction could
begin, an environmental impact report would have to be completed at
an estimated length of four to six months.
HOK Sport+Venue+Event, a division of the architecture firm
Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum and whose credits include the
Pittsburgh Steelers’ Heinz Field and the Arrowhead Pond,
unveiled the final renderings a few weeks ago.
Slated changes to the stadium include reducing seating by
one-third to 64,000, but building 140 luxury suites lining the
stadium’s rim. The stadium itself would be enlarged by
600,000 square feet to accommodate amenities such as underground
parking and a new concourse for concessions and patron
amenities.
“This upgrade project would significantly enhance the Rose
Bowl’s appearance,” Bogaard said. “They would
remove all the concession stands built around the stadium as well
as restrooms, and everything would be built inside.”
But major changes require major money. Bogaard insisted that no
city funds would go to the stadium’s renovation. A
revenue-producing giant such as the NFL, then, is necessary for a
project of this magnitude to go forward.
The rough terms of an agreement, according to Moag, would turn
cost of construction over to the NFL, who would most likely
shoulder the financial burden by selling naming rights to the field
as well as the newly-built luxury boxes.
“I am strongly committed to assuring that any arrangement
with the NFL protects UCLA and its season,” Bogaard said.
“We consider the Rose Bowl to be UCLA’s
stadium.”