Wachs Expands Fight Against Arena Plan

Councilman Joel Wachs used some of the Los Angeles Convention Center’s biggest customers to expand his attack Tuesday on plans for a taxpayer-assisted sports arena.

“Unfortunately, we are in the position of having to oppose� the arena project, said Andy Fuzesi, general manager of the Greater Los Angeles Auto Show, which he said makes up about 15% of the Convention Center’s annual revenues. The privately owned and operated arena would be built at the downtown Convention Center.

Fuzesi was joined at a City Hall news conference by AMC Corp. officials, managers of the California Gift Show, a biannual exhibition that has held its trade shows in Los Angeles since 1934. Wachs also released letters from other Convention Center clients, citing their concerns that the arena would cause parking shortages, congestion, logistics problems and loss of the North Hall exhibition building--which would be torn down to make room for the arena.

In a letter to Mayor Richard Riordan, Fuzesi asked that his organization be consulted before the city finalizes negotiations this month. Riordan’s office led efforts to bring the arena project to the city as a way of generating jobs, revitalizing downtown and improving the bottom line for the Convention Center.

In arguing that the project would hurt business at the underbooked Convention Center, Wachs attacked what arena backers believe is its strongest selling point. Backers say the arena, along with a hotel and other adjacent enterprises that developers want to add within seven years, would boost the center’s appeal and eliminate its annual taxpayers subsidy.

Reaction was swift and angry.

“Baloney!� said Riordan senior advisor Steven Soboroff, who led efforts to bring the arena proposal--by owners of the Kings NHL hockey franchise--to the table and who has remained one of the project’s most ardent and vocal backers. Soboroff said another arena backer, the Central City Assn. of downtown business interests, is planning a news conference aimed at showing how similar sports palaces in other cities have helped their convention business and sparked renaissances in surrounding neighborhoods.

Mayoral aide Steven Sugerman scrambled to contact the letter-writers and news conference participants.

“I immediately got on the phone and called these folks. . . . I told them we want to work out their issues,� Sugerman said, adding that Kings representatives also said they would cooperate with Convention Center clients.

“The response was very positive,� Sugerman said of the calls he made.

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Soboroff accused arena opponents of “scaring off our business� at the Convention Center by lining up its clients in their fight against the project.

Arena proponents argue that the project represents the city’s best hope of wiping out the recently expanded Convention Center’s drain on the city fund that pays for police, parks, libraries and other municipal services. This budget year, the center required $20 million from that fund. The amount is expected to grow in 1997-98.

That argument received a substantial boost last week in a report by the head of the Community Redevelopment Agency, which would take the lead in acquiring and clearing land for the project.

CRA Administrator John Molloy told board members that the Convention Center needs an adjacent hotel to make it a real player in the highly competitive business of attracting major conventions. Unless developers build the arena and follow through with a 1,500- to 1,800-room hotel within a few years, it is likely that taxpayers would wind up helping build a hotel there as well, Molloy said. He also said he expects the arena complex to replace “a significant number of extremely undesirable land uses� in the tired neighborhood around the center.

“From a redevelopment perspective, this is a clear-cut case. The staff of the agency urges swift, positive action on what is clearly a good deal for Los Angeles,� Molloy wrote shortly before the CRA board unanimously recommended that the City Council commit to the project.

Meanwhile, Councilman Nate Holden--the only other lawmaker to date to oppose the arena project--said he is raising money for a public opinion poll “and I’ll disclose the whole thing,� a reference to arena backers’ decision to keep private much of their poll.

deal for taxpayers.