AEG Chief Touts Stadium Deal to Sherman Oaks Residents

It was all smiles and hugs Wednesday evening for Tim Leiweke, president of Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG), which seeks to build a football stadium in downtown Los Angles, and City Attorney Carmen A. Trutanich, who represented the city in a stadium deal approved just nine days ago by the City Council.

Both showed up at a community meeting held by the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association that drew more than 120 attendees to the Notre Dame High School cafeteria. Leiweke was billed as the evening’s speaker on the stadium project, but Trutanich—“Nuch” as Leiweke called him—stopped by unannounced, apparently to vouch for the deal recently hammered out between AEG and the city.

“I thought the two of you were at war,” a questioner said to the pair. Trutanich responded: “We had a disagreement, like in a marriage.”

“We’re not married, just for the record,” Leiweke retorted.

But the city attorney praised Leiweke for letting him remain in the stadium negotiations and not asking the council for outside attorneys to work out the deal. The two men hugged each other after this comment.

The gratitude was understandable considering that Trutanich last month was criticized by the council, which asked for a study to determine if day-to-day prosecutions should be handled by Trutanich and more complex duties such as drafting legislation and civil litigation taken care of by outside attorneys.

Both Trutanich and Leiweke repeatedly said Wednesday that the terms worked out in a memo of understanding and approved by the council now need to be spelled out in a financial agreement.

Leiweke told the audience he wouldn’t go into the details of the terms and then launched into a broad, nonstop, rapid-fire presentation that had him throwing off his suit jacket. His points included:

• A profile of reclusive AEG founder Phillip Anschutz and Anschutz’s willingness to buy a piece of a National Football League (NFL) team to get one to Los Angeles.
• AEG’s track record of building in Los Angeles and the $100 million it paid in city, county and state taxes in 2010.
• The need for the private sector to build the stadium because the city is cash-strapped.
• How AEG’s Marriott Ritz Hotel alone propelled Los Angeles from a ranking of 26th in convention business behind Omaha, NE, to 15th by attracting conventions, such as Microsoft's.
• The need to raze the Los Angeles Convention Center’s 40-year-old West Hall and build a new structure contiguous with the existing, newer portion of the Convention Center and combine it with the stadium to create 1 million square feet of space.
• How the stadium would be a “mass transportation stadium” with 10,000 spectators using Metrolink, Metro rail and Dash buses, with ticket discounts to encourage them.
• The vision of a Super Bowl with half its spectators walking to the stadium because of five new hotels that Leiweke predicted would be built downtown.

Leiweke did give some broad information on the deal, including that AEG would build the stadium; the city would issue $185 million and then $80 million in bonds to revamp the Convention Center; and AEG would lease the land from the city with the lease payments and taxes sufficient to repay the bonds.

AEG would own and operate the stadium, likely using it 50 times a year, he said. Its retractable roof would make it a venue for about 10 NFL games and soccer matches, as well as for NCAA Final Four basketball, boxing, concerts and X Games. He cited AEG’s contacts with sports owners as a key reason that obtaining an NFL football team would be possible.

When asked why billionaire Anschutz didn’t just build everything outright, Leiweke responded that AEG doesn’t own the Convention Center land and can’t own it. In response to a question about the realism of the projected income streams, he answered that AEG is not projecting an income stream but guaranteeing to repay the bonds and back them with L.A. Live.

He also said AEG would back away should a competing stadium proposal in the City of Industry come to fruition and that AEG “can’t push dirt if we don’t have a team.”

At meeting’s end, Leiweke was given a Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association baseball cap and declared, “This is a lot better than any community event I’ve done; no one gave me a hat.”