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Wilted Rose
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The Pasadena City Council chose stagnation over progress, and voted 4-2 to help make the Rose Bowl less relevant. In other words, the Rose Bowl has rejected the NFL's potential offer to give Pasadena more than $500 million for renovations.What kind of City Council says "no" to $500 million to fix up a facility that loses $2 million a year? The Rose Bowl is a gorgeous stadium, a true historical landmark, but it's also in need of a facelift. Hosting 5-6 UCLA football games a year, plus a Bowl game with a future that's tied to the questionable BCS, won't keep the Rose Bowl sustainable much longer.
Opponents feared that the renovation would compromise the historical architecture of the Rose Bowl. But we've pointed out before that the plan is to have the process be more like Lambeau Field than Soldier Field. Opponents also feared traffic, noise, etc. While LAist feels the traffic and parking plan for the Rose Bowl renovation was questionable, we also feel like it was workable.
But LAist supposes that the residents of Pasadena generally got what they wanted. Pasadena just wants to be a sleepy little town. And so a facility hosting game called "the grandaddy of them all" will be napping like an old man in its forseeable future.
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As for the NFL in LA, the only options remain the Coliseum and Anaheim. Does anyone else think it's absurd that after 10 years, we're left with the two sites that effectively hosted the Raiders and Rams?
That's 10 years of looking at new plans at places like Chavez Ravine, South Park, El Segundo, Carson, etc, and we're basically right back where we started. Come on, LA! Where's our creativity? Where's our ambition? Where's our boldness? Why must we insist on only working with what we have, rather than trying to build something new, daring, and dazzling? Why must we cowtow to every NIMBY complaint that could ever arise?
This is the greatest city in the world, but it has the potential to be even better. In the last ten years, only Phil Anschutz and AEG have built new sports facilities in LA (STAPLES Center and Home Depot Center), and both have been tremendously successful. The final piece to the LA sports puzzle is a football stadium, but we've basically come up with modifcations on what we've always had.
LAist wishes we had better options, but given what's realistic in today's political climate, we support the Coliseum plan. That stadium is also a historical landmark, the neighborhood is improving, and it's actually within the city limits, unlike Anaheim where we can revive the Los Angeles Whatevers of Anaheim debate while driving two hours to see our NFL team.
Sure, support the Coliseum. Now let's just get it done.
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