Rose Bowl's open house a big kick
By Kenneth Todd Ruiz Staff Writer
Pasadena Star-News
Sunday, October 28, 2007
PASADENA - An unlikely pair bonded by political pragmatism, stadium manager Darryl Dunn and preservationist-in-chief Sue Mossman were both rooting for Team Rose Bowl on Saturday.
Intended to showcase a report due out in December on renovations proposed for the stadium, the bowl's second open-house event this year took visitors down into the newly completed, five-star locker rooms used by UCLA's football team.
Event hosts Dunn and Mossman, president of the preservation group Pasadena Heritage, hold a shared interest in seeing the stadium's future secure. But their motives and priorities diverge.
Dunn sees red in the stadium's balance sheets, declining revenue and the specter of a local version of the Orange Bowl, something he is determined to prevent.
“Its existence is dead,” he said of Florida's vacant stadium. “We will not become an Orange Bowl, or Cotton Bowl.”
Mossman, who no longer is fretting over the possibility of an NFL megastadium replacing the 86-year-old landmark, is anxious over how the historic icon will be modified.
Mossman said practical concerns about the stadium's economic viability have tempered her idealistic impulse to see it go untouched.
“In the long term, that might mean no use for the stadium - and that's not good preservation, either,” she said. “Ensuring its future, economically ... is important to the structure being there, and historic structures can tolerate change.”
Mossman was among those who opposed bringing professional football to the Rose Bowl. The opposition culminated last year in a landslide defeat of the so-called NFL Initiative at the ballot box.
Now, support is growing for a Plan B, an alternative that calls for funding more modest renovations to the Rose Bowl. The plan was presented by Mossman, bowl neighbors and Mayor Bill Bogaard.
The Rose Bowl is likely to figure prominently in Mayor Bogaard's State of the City address in January, which he will deliver from the subterranean splendor of the stadium's new locker rooms.
Dunn and the stadium's board of directors know that renovating the bowl is going to come with a big price. Estimates for all the improvements "on the menu" approach $300 million, he said.
Stadium officials have been meeting with representatives of the bowl's two tenants - the Tournament of Roses and UCLA - to present the promise of a better bowl and negotiate for an increased financial investment.
But there is no real funding plan to date.
Coming on the heels of an expensive renovation of City Hall, paying for Rose Bowl improvements will likely fall upon taxpayers again.
Getting all or part of the renovations will require buy-in from the public and support from the same wealthy and influential residents who opposed the NFL deal.
Asked to make a case for the most compelling reasons for doing any improvements, Dunn called attention to a draft master plan presented in March for the stadium. It underscored safety issues and inadequate tunnel capacity for moving people in and out of the stadium.
Widening the tunnels or building a rim around the top of the bowl, with an exoskeleton of staircases and ramps grafted on, are two of the most significant proposals.
todd.ruiz@sgvn.com
(626) 578-6300, Ext. 4444
www.insidesocal.com/pasadenapolitics