STUDY FAVORS COLISEUM PROPOSAL: ALTERNATIVES LACK FUNDS, STUDY SAYS.

Byline: Patrick McGreevy Daily News Staff Writer

In the latest scrimmage over building a football stadium in Los Angeles, a consultant has determined that renovating the Coliseum makes better financial sense than building a new stadium downtown.

Sam Katz of the financial-consulting firm Stafford Sports Ventures wrote to city officials this week with his conclusion after the Chamber of Commerce's board of directors failed to muster enough votes to endorse the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum project.

In a report that Coliseum backers plan to use to break the chamber board's deadlock, Katz wrote that chamber officials should be wary of alternative projects, including a proposal by South Park Sports Inc. to privately finance the construction of a new football stadium near the downtown Convention Center.

The South Park project is ``unworkable and unrealistic,'' Katz wrote.

Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, the most vocal supporter of what is called the ``New Coliseum'' project, said the consultant's position should help backers of the project win a chamber majority next month.

The councilman said the consultant's report questioned the lack of a financing plan by South Park and the ability of new team owners to sustain ``extraordinary financing obligations'' of stadium construction.

In contrast, the consultant is impressed by the Coliseum project's financial advantages, including access to the lower rate of debt financing available to governments, as well as the land, infrastructure and planning entitlements already in the hands of local government agencies, according to an internal city report released this week.

The chamber board voted 20-3, with nine abstentions, to support the Coliseum on June 12, but the vote was one short of the two-thirds majority of the board needed to approve the resolution, officials said.

Ridley-Thomas accused former chamber Chairman Sheldon Ausman, a leader of the South Park group, of raising the specter of alternative projects to hinder support for the Coliseum.

Ausman did not return calls Friday for comment, but the South Park group's attorney, Alan Morelli, denied that the group is trying to derail the Coliseum and he disputed claims that the South Park proposal is ``unworkable.''

``Before the Coliseum proposal, that (South Park) proposal was the only one that made sense,'' Morelli said.

He said the financial modeling work was shut down by the South Park group when it agreed to the request of city officials to let the Coliseum make its pitch to the National Football League first.

Officials in Inglewood said Katz's conclusions are at odds with the NFL's preliminary endorsement of Hollywood Park's financing plan back when the Raiders were considering moving to Inglewood.

Rick Baedeker, a vice president with Hollywood Park, said his organization's proposal for a stadium has been placed on hold to allow the Coliseum to be considered, but is a viable alternative if the NFL rejects the Coliseum.

``The NFL has seen our financial models. If the Coliseum is no longer an option for the NFL we would be glad to work with the NFL,'' he said.

NFL owners were cool to the Coliseum proposal at a meeting last month in Coronado, but city officials will pitch the plan again at an owners meeting next fall.