• LA Chargers? It’s still a dream — OC Register
• Savor this folks, Chargers could soon be L.A. Bound — North County Times
Ed Roski and the other Los Angeles NFL stadium idea
Bill Dwyre, LA times
August 12, 2011
http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-dwyre-ed-roski-20110813,0,3428496.column?track=rss
The big headlines and media noise swirling around the proposed downtown stadium have given new life to the nearly forgotten concept that the NFL might have a team in Los Angeles again.
One thing is certain. Tim Leiweke and his Anschutz Entertainment Group have won the battle of perception. The only way Leiweke could have made a bigger splash would have been to don a Paul Revere hat and ride through the streets of Los Angeles, yelling: "The NFL is coming! The NFL is coming!"
The implication of his proposed site, next to Staples Center, is that it would make L.A. Live even livelier. It is a sexy place after years of being a no-man's land.
Want some action? Come see an NFL game and stay that night to see Kobe. Hungry? Have Wolfgang Puck rustle up dinner. Make it an overnight? No Motel 6's here. Hand your platinum card to the J.W. Marriott. ESPN is here, too, zoned for food and for dishing out scoops of media self-importance.
It is a sort of Disneyland, a place to be for those who need a place to be.
Now, after years of nothing happening on the NFL front, this deal seems inevitable. The NFL has finished its labor problems. All parties — other than the long-forgotten and long-suffering retired players — seem happy. And the NFL has indicated it will now focus on Los Angeles.
You can chalk it up. Leiweke will build it downtown, and they will come. It is done.
Interestingly, there remains a quiet dissenter 20 miles or so to the east. Think of Ed Roski as a man in waiting.
Roski is the billionaire from Industry who has his own stadium proposal. Oh, yes. Remember him?
He is 72 and looks 52. He climbs mountains and rides bicycles all around countries the size of Ireland. He lives next to the golf course at Lakeside Country Club in Toluca Lake, is a member, and never plays golf.
"I love the game, love to watch it on TV," he says. "I just never started to play, and now it's too late."
He is a real estate executive, the head of Majestic Realty, who counts among his friends the man who is financing Leiweke's Paul Revere rides around downtown.
"Phil Anschutz has been a tremendous asset to Southern California," Roski says. "We talk to each other all the time."
Were Roski a reporter, he'd never get to talk to Anschutz, but that's a story for another day.
Roski and Anschutz are the strangest of competitors. They started doing deals together more than 30 years ago when Anschutz, then a newly rich Denver oilman, called about a parcel of land near Union Station and both chatted about the need for a new stadium in the Los Angeles area. Now Roski owns a piece of Anschutz's Staples Center and has ownership pieces, as does Anschutz, in Jerry Buss's Lakers. Roski also has a piece of Anschutz's ownership of the Kings.
A bitter rivalry for the NFL's hand in marriage this is not.
"If the downtown site wins," Roski says, "the first thing is that I will be happy the city got a team. It's one of those things where I don't care if it is in my backyard or your backyard — let's just get a team back."
That being said, Roski thinks his stadium concept, on his own 600-acre plot of land where the 57 and 60 freeways meet near the cities of Industry, Walnut and Diamond Bar, is the best one. He says his wide-open spaces provide outside parking that creates what he calls "the fan experience." He says that, more than anything else, drives the NFL.
He wrinkles his nose at the thought of tailgate parties in parking structures, which is where the downtown site would stash most of its fans.
"You want it outside, with big tents and room for parties, even room for things to do after the games," Roski says. "This is Southern California. We have the weather."
In true real-estate vernacular, Roski says this is all about "location, location, location." He points to a huge map on the wall that shows L.A., Riverside, San Bernardino and Orange Counties — with his stadium site near the center. His implication was that this would be a truly Los Angeles-area team, giving fans from all over a chance to attend.
Roski says all his work is done, all the environmental action has been taken, no bonds need to be floated, no communities are objecting. He said the NFL does not allow owners to have ownership of casinos, and if he got a team, he would give his Las Vegas Silverton to his children. He says he released his architect, for the moment, to do other work "because it is work, and I won't take that away from people." And he said he hasn't acquired naming rights for his stadium, unlike Leiweke did with his lucrative deal with Farmers Insurance, because "it makes more sense to do that once you have a team."
Roski says: "We could put a shovel in the ground tomorrow."
Also a dagger in the heart of Phil Anschutz.
You gotta love Los Angeles' dueling billionaires. The NFL certainly should.
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LA Chargers? It’s still a dream
Randy Youngman, OC Register
August 12, 2011
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/stadium-311930-chargers-downtown.html
Is it too soon to start calling them the Los Angeles Chargers?
It is, according to Mark Fabiani, special counsel for the San Diego Chargers, in charge of spearheading the team's continuing efforts to secure a new football stadium.
Some media are leaping to conclusions after the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously this week to endorse a tentative framework agreement with Anschutz Entertainment Group, a private developer that wants to build an NFL stadium in downtown LA.
But Fabiani said this development was expected and emphasized the project "still has a long way to go before it is approved and financed, and before it survives the gauntlet of environmental lawsuits and possible citizen ballot challenges it could face."
Asked which team he thought was the frontrunner to play in LA, Fabiani told the San Diego Union-Tribune it's too early to speculate.
"There are so many unknowns," said Fabiani, a Harvard-educated lawyer who once served four years as L.A.'s deputy mayor and also as former mayor Tom Bradley's chief of staff. "Is the NFL going to demand a $500 million relocation fee? Will EIR (Environmental Impact Report) lawsuits or a potential citizen-sponsored, anti-stadium referendum fatally delay a project?
"What are the economics of financing this kind of deal privately in such perilous economic times? Assuming that AEG wants to buy a majority stake in a team, as recent press reports have indicated, is there an existing NFL owner interested both in selling his team to AEG at a price AEG is willing to pay and then watching as his former team is moved out of town?
"As we all know, Ed Roski has had a shovel-ready stadium project (in the City of Industry) since 2008 and has been unable so far to move forward – proving, I think, that these projects are much, much harder to pull off than most observers understand."
Obviously, there are a lot of obstacles to the Chargers packing up and moving back to LA, where the franchise was born in 1960 as an American Football League franchise. In addition to the potential hurdles Fabiani cited, the Chargers would need a temporary stadium to play in because a downtown stadium wouldn't be ready until 2016. Would USC allow them to play at the Coliseum? Would the City of Pasadena welcome them at the Rose Bowl as a temporary tenant?
The Chargers are open to selling a minority interest in the team, so that shouldn't be a problem if it is a condition in a particular stadium project.
I still think the City of Industry stadium proposal, now called Los Angeles Stadium at Grand Crossing, would be a better site than downtown LA, because its location at the junction of the 57 and 60 freeways would be more convenient for residents in four counties, because traffic and parking would be less of a problem than downtown and because construction could start as soon as a team commits to moving there.
The NFL always wants competition to drive the price up, but indications are that it would also prefer the downtown zip code because it is planning to put the new stadium in the regular rotation for Super Bowls. Lots of local hotels are needed for that.
There's a clause in the Chargers' lease at Qualcomm Stadium that allows them to leave between Feb. 1 and May 1 each year by paying a substantial early termination penalty, so there's no way they would tip their hand during the 2011 season. Ditto for the other teams rumored to be interested in moving to Southern California, such as the Jacksonville Jaguars and those two NFL teams that left here 17 years ago.
Fabiani also has made it clear the Chargers have not given up on plans for a downtown stadium in San Diego, saying he has been working with architects, business leaders and politicians on various concepts while trying to finalize a ballot measure for San Diego voters in the fall of 2012.
All of which means it's much too soon to start dreaming about the Los Angeles Chargers.
I don't think we'll ever see a downtown NFL stadium in LA, but I've been wrong before. A few months ago, I thought it was a slam-dunk the Anaheim Royals would be getting ready for their first season at Honda Center.
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Savor this folks, Chargers could soon be L.A. bound
JAY PARIS, North County Times
August 12, 2011
http://www.nctimes.com/sports/columnists/paris/article_8ddb96c8-a155-5b6a-aab5-6977c802cd75.html
SAN DIEGO -- Maybe forking over dough for a crummy Chargers-Seahawks preseason game will be referred to as the good ol' days.
Maybe next summer we will reminisce about the Chargers, Charger Girls, fireworks and fly-bys with glint of sadness in our eyes.
Was Thursday night the beginning of the end? Was Thursday the marking of one home game down, nine to go before the Chargers exit San Diego? Will Qualcomm Stadium be filled with ashes of a departed franchise in 12 months, instead of burnt coals from thousands of tailgate bashes?
The Chargers are back, and the area's sports fans rejoice. But for every Philip Rivers pass, my thoughts floated to Los Angeles.
Yeah, the big, bad smog-belching metropolis to the north is flexing its muscles. The nation's second-largest city is trying to pick off America's Finest City's team.
The proposed stadium that will further clog downtown L.A.'s traffic is gathering steam. A region that last fielded a team since 1994 and has failed to move the chains with numerous stadium proposals is in the red zone.
The Anschutz Entertainment Group got some good news Tuesday when the L.A. City Council voted, unanimously, to enter into a memorandum of understanding with the company to construct Farmers Field. The stadium will hold one, maybe two, NFL franchises as the league seeks more ways to, as it says, grow the pie.
Just maybe, the Chargers are a slice of that pastry.
But there goes team president Dean Spanos gliding confidently to his suite before Thursday's game, with his charming wife, Susie. Asked for a comment about L.A.'s politicians lining up behind AEG, he shrugged.
"Nah," he said. "I'm focused on what is going on down here."
OK. But we're tracking it too, and compared to what L.A. has on the drawing board, what's to look at?
After a decade of reviewing various locations for a new stadium in San Diego County, the current last-best shot is a site adjacent to Petco Park. But while Chargers backers gush about the location -- it would be cool -- just where the financing to build such a project will originate remains the $1 billion question.
Which, really, is why the L.A. proposal is the snowball rolling downhill. While there will be public financing involved -- it's unavoidable and don't believe otherwise -- the lion's share of the money will come from a private source: AEG.
The builder of the successful L.A. Live, with the Staples Center as its anchor tenant, is a smashing success. What hasn't moved so well is the thousands of condominiums AEG built surrounding L.A. Live. Let's be clear: that is why AEG is investing so heavily in Farmers Field. It needs to hawk its other real estate holdings and realizes the NFL provides a heck of a vehicle to do so.
But with those thoughts circling, there goes Rivers, dropping back to plop a beautiful 48-yard pass into Vincent Jackson's mitts. There goes Mike Tolbert taking a Rivers' 8-yard swing pass and diving for the end zone.
Tolbert scores, leaps to his feet and starts shaking with his version of the "Dougie."
With so many parts moving in so many directions, we just hope it's not called the L.A. honks don't have the chance next August to dub it the "Earthquake."
But Mark Fabiani, the Chargers' spokesman on stadium issues, isn't booking a stool at The Pantry, the venerable diner blocks from the proposed Farmers Field.
"The many L.A. rumors over the last nine years sometimes make us feel like Bill Murray in 'Groundhog Day,' " Fabiani wrote in an e-mail.
"In 2002 the Chargers were moving to L.A. to play in the stadium that AEG was proposing (and subsequently abandoned) in downtown L.A. In 2008, the Chargers were moving to L.A. to play in Ed Roski's shovel-ready stadium in the City of Industry. In December 2010, the Chargers had sold (according to a Toronto sports talk radio host) 35 (percent) of the team to AEG. And in 2011, there are still more Groundhog Day-like rumors.
Through all the years the Chargers have continued to try to find a solution in San Diego, an expensive and time-consuming effort that continues to this day."
The day will come, the Chargers swear, when San Diego's voters will be asked to contribute tax dollars for a fresh venue to replace Qualcomm Stadium, hopefully in November 2012.
The team's East Village site is compelling -- it is trying to do what L.A. Live delivered. That's to construct a sports and entertainment complex, used in conjunction with the Convention Center.
But no election is needed in L.A. This is basically a privately financed stadium.
Unless Fabiani and friends do a great job selling their project as more than a stadium for the ultra-wealthy Spanos family, the election results -- in this economy? -- can be projected now.
As grumpy Chargers running back Ronnie Harmon used to say when asked for thought, "what part of no don't you understand?''
Just then inside linebacker Takeo Spikes stuffed a running play. There was Luis Castillo, no really Castillo, pestering Seahawks quarterback Tarvaris Jackson. And Bob Sanders, his dreadlocks flopping in the breeze, putting his mark on a play or two.
It would be nice if the Chargers would play along as well, saying they'll be here for a year or two. But they haven't, giving no assurances that 2011 won't be remembered as their final season in San Diego. As soon as February -- right after their first Super Bowl win? -- they could have the downtown parade, then keep going north. The team has a window each February to notify the city of its intentions to move, and that opening is looking more viable to make a rich move north.
The month known for love could next year come with heartbreak. The month full of sweets could be feature a sour-ending for a franchise that grabbed this community like few other things -- sports or otherwise.
What Fabiani states is true. The Chargers have had the eyes of many suitors batted their way.
But this threat feels different, feels serious, feels like if the team, and San Diego, doesn't get its act together soon, the Bolts could bolt.
For once, a preseason game never looked so good.