CRUMBLING CONCRETE is visible near bleachers at the Rose Bowl. The 78-year-old stadium is showing its age and becoming more difficult to maintain. Efforts to modernize the facility last decade resulted in two bonds totaling $34 million. (Staff Photo by BERNARDO ALPS)

Historic stadium faces pressure to modernize

By Gabe Lacques
Staff Writer

PASADENA -- For 78 years, it has gracefully stood the test of time. Now, this city's greatest landmark, the Rose Bowl, may be facing its biggest test of all.

In an era where large, multi-use stadiums go from the drawing board to the wrecking ball in just 31 years (see Three Rivers Stadium, Pittsburgh), the Rose Bowl has endured, fueled by its enviable location and a tradition perhaps unmatched by any venue this side of Rome's Colosseum.

But the very things that make the stadium great also make it vulnerable.

Its heritage is a strength. The Rose Bowl has played host to the oldest of all college football bowl games, plus five Super Bowls, Olympic events and the women's and men's World Cup soccer finals. No stadium in the country can match its tradition.

Its heritage also is a weakness. A 78-year-old monolith is difficult to maintain, and it's bordering on outdated.

Its size is a strength. With a capacity exceeding 90,000 for most events, it can house more fans and generate more revenue for tenants than any other venue.

Its size can also be a weakness. Rare is the event that justifies the use of a 90,000-seat facility.

Its location is a strength. On a smogless day, is there a finer backdrop than the Arroyo Seco and the San Gabriel Mountains?

Yet its location also is a weakness. Hundreds of residents just happen to think the immediate area is gorgeous, too, and they'd like to keep it that way.

Consequently, the stadium is approaching a crossroads of sorts. The Rose Bowl is becoming more expensive to maintain, and it's not getting any younger. Efforts to modernize the stadium last decade including a larger press box that includes some VIP seating, new stadium seats and restrooms, a scoreboard and a video board came at a price. Two bonds totaling $34 million were taken out to pay for the renovations; there's almost $29 million of debt left on those bonds, which won't be paid off until 2016.

In the face of such debt, the stadium's revenue will decrease when the Los Angeles Galaxy soccer team moves to a soccer-specific stadium in Carson in 2003. If a new stadium is built in Los Angeles County perhaps for an incoming NFL team many stadium and city officials believe it will snap up the Rose Bowl's No. 1 tenant, the UCLA football team.

"The Rose Bowl's past is storied and well-documented," said Darryl Dunn, the stadium general manager, who is charged with generating fresh revenue streams to keep the facility viable. "Its future is fragile."

How fragile? Well, there won't be any cranes carrying wrecking balls into the Arroyo Seco anytime soon. But the next 10 to 15 years will be crucial in determining whether the Rose Bowl can survive in the volatile, modern stadium climate, or wilt under the pressure of mounting costs and dwindling tenants.

"To the average person walking around in the San Gabriel Valley, you'd think the Rose Bowl has always been here and always will be," said Porfirio Frausto, president of the Rose Bowl Operating Company. "That's probably the furthest thing from the truth."

Showing its age
Viewed as an empty stadium from the inside, the Rose Bowl doesn't look a day older than 30. Those new seats and other signs of diligent maintenance create the appearance for fans and TV cameras that the stadium is on par with its younger brethren.

But walk underneath the bleachers, into the infrastructure of the bowl, and things look different.

The walls look like they're going on 80 years old, which they are, of course. The locker rooms refurbished several times over are still small by contemporary standards and insufficient for the size of both the modern football roster and player.

As for the seats...
"Unfortunately, the stadium's built for the size of people in 1925," said Tom Hansen, commissioner of the Pacific-10 Conference.

Adds Jim Delany, commissioner of the Big Ten Conference, which for the past 55 years has sent its football champion to play here on New Year's Day:

"There do need to be changes. It's a terrific venue, a historic landmark, a great place to play a college football game. Everything about it connotes a successful American tradition. At the same time, it's going to be necessary to upgrade, and must be maintained at a sufficiently modern level."

It will never be modern, because newer stadiums are designed with a smaller, more intimate setting in mind. Even with a crowd of 60,000 for a UCLA game, it can seem strangely vacant.

"The stadium's older, more rugged, and it's also a very big stadium," said Pasadena City Councilman Bill Crowfoot. "Things that are not huge sellouts tend to make the stadium look empty. It is not a modern stadium in the sense that it is not comfortable to sit in. We've got some issues with egress and regress, tunnels. We've got some definite comfort and convenience issues."

Resolving those issues is paramount to determining the stadium's future, because basic comfort isn't its only major deficiency. There are just 44 luxury boxes about 100 less than most modern stadiums and no premium seating. Such a shortfall likely will turn off any future major tenants, like an NFL team.

"We spent $40 million down there over the last decade," said Councilman Steve Madison. "I'm not aware of any major capital projects that are needed right now. I understand it's an old stadium, and needs to be maintained. But what that question leads to is how we're going to use the stadium for the future. There's always a rumor here or there with the NFL coming in. It's clearly not an NFL-type stadium now in terms of quality of seats and suites."

Debt demons
Bonds to improve the stadium seemed like a good idea at the time, and Dunn thinks it still is.

"If you don't reinvest in your facility, you're asking for it to erode and not continue to be considered one of the premier facilities in the world," he said. "You look at the Rose Bowl's history, there's constant reinvestment."

But what wasn't known in 1996, when the second bond totaling $21.2 million was taken out, was that the Galaxy would be gone within seven years.

Dunn said the Galaxy will generate $500,000 in revenue this year, most of that coming from advertising. Though the team's attendance has been disappointing, it keeps the stadium active in the spring and gives advertisers the impression the Rose Bowl is a year-round facility.

After 2002, that revenue will be gone, but the bond debt won't be.

"From now until 2012, it's not a pretty picture, until the press box (bond debt) drops off," said Dunn, who assumed his post in the summer of 1999. "What we'll try to do is find ways to get new activity in here. But if we can't increase revenue, we'll have to decrease expenses. At some point, we may have to make some difficult decisions on what to cut."

City Finance Director Jay Goldstone confirmed that money for capital improvements will be scarce while the bond debt is paid down.

"At this point, given the current mix and revenue stream, I would say yes, (improvements aren't possible), unless the city, which I do not envision happening at this point, commits to assisting the debt service," Goldstone said. "Essentially, I believe they're tapped out."

Before the bond debt, the Rose Bowl was required to make an annual contribution to the city's General Fund, which in a given year totaled around $800,000. From 1994-99, the stadium was unable to make that payment. Ultimately, Mayor Bill Bogaard said, the stadium's $8.7 million debt to the city was forgiven, and the stadium is no longer required to make an annual contribution to the General Fund.

What's more, the City Council recently approved an ordinance that allows the RBOC to take 10 percent of greens fees revenues from Brookside Golf Course which it also operates to help with debt service.

Goldstone said because of the bond debt, were it not for revenue from Brookside, the Rose Bowl would be in the red.

That's why Crowfoot opposed going into debt then, and chafes about it now.

"It seems to me any significant improvements to our stadium will have to be made with a very specific purpose in mind, a very specific tenant in mind," Crowfoot said. "Because, otherwise, we won't get our money back. We will be sitting there, nakedly paying out of debt. Frankly, we didn't need to make the improvements we made for the Galaxy, because it didn't induce them to stay longer."

Fighting off competition
With the Galaxy on the way out, Dunn and Co.'s challenge will be identifying and attracting events that are a good fit for the stadium, like last summer's 'N Sync concert. That netted the stadium $150,000, but major acts that can justify the use of such a large venue are rare, though the teen-friendly boy band will be back this summer.

Stadium operators caught a break with the recent revision to the Arroyo Seco Ordinance, which originally limited the venue to 12 "major" events (greater than 20,000 spectators) per year. Now, the stadium can schedule up to 25 events a year without having to seek council approval.

"('N Sync) was profitable, and it was enjoyed by a large number of people," Bogaard said. "That's the kind of event that the Rose Bowl management is working hard to promote and see if they can't increase the revenues without imposing unduly on the neighbors."

With the construction of the Pond and Staples Center in the past decade, competition for premium acts has intensified. Still, the biggest threat to the Rose Bowl a new, sparkling outdoor stadium hasn't emerged. At least not yet.

"You know someone's going to build a stadium somewhere," Crowfoot said. "It's going to happen. And then we're going to be competing with that. To have that large a structure just sitting there, making a minor contribution to the city, seems to me to be an unfortunate possibility."

-- Gabe Lacques can be reached at (626) 962-8811, Ext. 2239, or at gabe.lacques@sgvn.com.

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