ARENA BUILT AS CITY'S `PLATFORM'.

Byline: Billy Witz Staff Writer

PASADENA - That a stadium located in such an idyllic setting and with such a rich tradition as the Rose Bowl could be imperiled says much about the high-stakes stadium game.

The Rose Bowl has played host in the last decade to a Super Bowl, a college football national title game and World Cup finals for men's and women's soccer. It is also more regularly the home of the UCLA football team and, of course, the New Year's Day college bowl game that bears its name.

When the Rose Bowl was built in 1922, its purpose was - in conjunction with the Rose Parade - to provide Pasadena a platform to the world.

For more than 50 years, it did that brilliantly each New Year's Day. Then the Rose Bowl took most of the next 364 days off, sitting silent save for flea markets, a Fourth of July fireworks show and an occasional high school football game.

The Super Bowl first came to Pasadena in 1977, but it was five years later, when UCLA arrived, that the dynamic changed. It was no longer a once-a-year facility.

At its age and with the added traffic - the stadium increasingly played to large events such as soccer in the 1984 Olympics, more Super Bowls and concerts - the Rose Bowl's wrinkles began to show.

A pair of 20-year bonds, totaling $31.5 million, were issued in 1992 and 1996 to fund improvements in seating, access for the disabled, a new scoreboard and press box.

The improvements were necessary to land the 1993 Super Bowl, the men's World Cup in 1994 and the women's World Cup in 1999, and keep UCLA a satisfied tenant, but they came at a price. The bond debt is between $2.4 million and $2.8 million per year until 2012, when one bond debt expires. The other, which will then require a yearly payment of about $1.6 million, will be retired at the end of 2016.

To help cover the bond debt, the Rose Bowl Operating Co., which manages the stadium and neighboring Brookside Golf Course, has been using the approximately $2 million per year in golf course profits.

All of which is fine for the time being, city officials say. But the Galaxy has left for the Home Depot Center, depleting revenues. Big-ticket soccer matches, such as the Women's World Cup later this year, are headed there, too.

And if a new stadium is built in Carson or in another area, UCLA, which is currently negotiating an extension of its current lease, could also leave.

``This whole effort is not about whether the Rose Bowl will be alive in a year or two or five,'' said Darryl Dunn, the Rose Bowl general manager. ``It's about 15-20 years from now.

``It's been our feeling that it's not a matter of if the NFL comes to (the Los Angeles area) but when. Once that happens, that's it. You can't sit and wait for 10 years and then do something. By then the NFL will be here and it will be too late.''

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1) This early photograph shows the Rose Bowl still under construction in Pasadena's Arroyo Seco, or ``dry creek.''

(2) An aerial view of the Rose Bowl taken in 1923 shows its original construction - a semicircle - and the dry creek bed the massive sports facility was built in.

Courtesy of Pasadena Public Library