SDSU Wins Important Round in Battle to Build Arena : Court: Judge OKs school’s environmental impact report. Residents vow to continue fight against arena.

San Diego State University won a victory in Superior Court Thursday, when a judge decided the school had satisfied the stringent requirements of an environmental impact report for the 12,000-seat basketball and rock concert arena that it plans to build on campus.

Fears of increased noise, traffic and parking snafus surrounding the proposed Student Activity Center had prompted lawsuits by two college-area homeowners’ groups.

A year ago, the Alvarado Homeowners Assn., won won a court ruling forcing the university to file a supplemental and far more detailed EIR. A second group, Friends of the College Area, lost its challenge to the supplemental report Thursday.

University officials said Thursday said that, barring an appeal, they feel free to proceed with construction, which university spokesman Rick Moore said could begin by the end of the year.

“If it’s a victory for anybody, it’s a victory for our students, who, for the last several years, have been paying increased fees to finance construction,” SDSU President Thomas B. Day said of the verdict.

In a 1988 referendum, students approved a per-semester fee increase from $16 to $63 to finance what is now a $41-million project consisting of two parts--a 76,000-square-foot intramural facility and the arena, designated for varsity basketball and major rock shows.

As part of the plan, the university signed a 15-year, $4-million contract with Avalon Attractions, a Los Angeles-based rock promotions company that will have exclusive control over booking as many as 31 concerts a year into the arena.

After complaints from community groups, the university agreed to build as part of the project a 2,000-space parking garage. But the president of Friends of the College Area said Thursday that neighboring homeowners remain concerned about what he called “the Avalon arena.”

“It’s quite insane for the university to proceed with increasing student fees . . . when tuition is going up and services are going down,” Gary DeBusschere said. “The educational community is starving for money. Why is a rock ‘n’ roll palace a requirement?”

Day said the building is necessary precisely because the university needs the revenues it would generate.

He said he has dreams of the school fielding an intercollegiate men’s basketball team capable of reaching the NCAA’s “Final Four” and thus attracting the money and fame that go with such a distinction.

“Such an arena will have a very big effect,” Day said. “We could show (basketball) recruits pictures of our new arena and present to them in person big crowds, right on campus.

“Anybody who likes basketball likes to think of the days when John Wooden was coaching at UCLA, and they were playing on campus, in Pauley Pavilion. Those were the days UCLA became fully integrated with its surrounding community, and the community became integrated with the student body.

“The whole area was alive with excitement. That’s my dream for San Diego State and this community, and this arena is obviously a big part of that dream.”

But DeBusschere said that Friends of the College Area is leaning toward yet another legal action, even if it declines an appeal of Thursday’s action. He said he will know more by Monday or Tuesday.

He said the homeowners’ group may decide to try to defeat the entire project, rather than demand more concessions.

“If Mr. Day thinks the light is green, then he’s reading the wrong signals,” DeBusschere said. “If we as a community can’t control our planning process, then we’ll just have to shut it off. So, any future action may indeed be to try to kill the project. We tried to work with the university, but they didn’t want that. We have other means at our disposal.

“If this (the Student Activity Center) turns out to be a white elephant, then let it be Tom Day’s elephant.”