NFL IN L.A.? GROUPS FOCUS ON STADIUM DESIGN.

Byline: Steve Dilbeck Staff Writer

With less than a month before NFL owners meet in Chicago, principals from the two competing Los Angeles ownership groups met a second time Wednesday to focus their newly combined effort on a Coliseum stadium and site plan.

Bill Chadwick, recently appointed by Gov. Gray Davis to direct the Los Angeles franchise drive, would not confirm the new team effort was basing its plans on Michael Ovitz's design and parking scheme, but came away encouraged a consensus was near.

``I'm highly confident we're going to come to a common resolution,'' Chadwick said. ``I can't say it's going to be the next meeting or the one after that. But I'm very confident we're going to come to a meeting of the minds on what this ought to be.''

Chadwick said he met for about four hours with Ed Roski Jr., a principal with Eli Broad in the competing ownership group, Ovitz, NFL vice president Roger Goodell and about a dozen architects representing both groups. He met with the potential owners and NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue for the first time last week.

The two groups are working out a compromise between the 27,000 additional parking spaces proposed by Ovitz, and the 7,500 by Broad-Roski. The NFL has requested at least 25,000 spaces for the Coliseum, but even if they agree on something closer to 17,000 spaces, Ovitz's multiple-garage design would have to be utilized.

``I'm narrowing it down, and I don't think it's appropriate to say what it's narrowed down to at this point because I don't positively know,'' Chadwick said. ``I'm just not there yet.

``We had lots of discussion, but we need to see drawings to see what it looks like and how it all works. I'm probably going to get that next week.''

The Roski-Broad Coliseum renovation features a modern design with a futuristic canopy covering the upper decks. The Ovitz design is based on the ancient Roman Coliseum.

The two groups are supposed to be combining their efforts leading up to the July 28 meeting of NFL owners, and Chadwick would not say they were modifying the Ovitz design.

``It's nobody's plan,'' Chadwick said. ``It's the plan for the Coliseum. This isn't about whose plan or whose vision or whose thought, it's about collectively what we think works.''

Although working together on a stadium and site plan, the NFL is still expected to select only one ownership group. Both Broad and Ovitz have said they want to be the principal owner.

Chadwick has broken the combined Los Angeles effort into various sub-groups that meet on an almost daily basis but said he didn't expect another major meeting with principals until possibly late next week.

Although the two groups say they can afford the stadium redesign and franchise fee, both said they will need outside assistance to finance parking structures. Ovitz said each space costs $9,000.

The NFL could offer some financial aid for parking, but some public assistance is still expected to be needed. Chadwick said he is now focusing on financing the parking additions for the state-owned property.

``It's a long card game, and we're not at the end of the deck,'' he said.