The city of Pasadena filed a Notice of Preparation (opens a pdf) earlier this month for an environmental review process that would pave the way for an NFL team to make a temporary home in the Rose Bowl--before eventually settling at either AEG's proposed Downtown stadium or Majestic Realty's proposed Industry stadium. Pasadena has been talking about bringing the NFL to town for a while, but began the NOP process in March, when it voted 6-1 to allot $400,000 for a study of the impacts of housing an NFL team in the stadium for five years. The plan is complicated by a local law, the Arroyo Seco Public Lands Ordinance, which only allows 12 major events at the Rose Bowl a year. With the environmental review, the city would seek a temporary allowance of 25 "Displacement Events"--the NFL games, UCLA football games, and Rose Bowl and BCS Championship games.
In a KPCC article covering the March vote, Rose Bowl General Manager Darryl Dunn said that the stadium could provide a comfortable interim home, but not until after the completion of the stadium's ongoing renovations: "We're in the middle of a renovation which will be completed substantially by September of 2013, which would be the soonest a team would be moving here." KPCC also explained that the "potential millions in revenue" that the NFL could bring would contribute to the $160 million funding gap for the Rose Bowl renovation (a panel of experts from the Urban Land Institute also had suggestions for the stadium's money woes back in February).
The Notice of Preparation explains a few more details about the scope of the proposal, and whether more construction would be needed to meet the demands of the NFL: "The maximum permitted attendance for NFL games at the Stadium will not exceed 75,000 people. The NFL games will occur approximately between about August 1 and January 31, annually for a period of up to five years. There is no new construction or addition proposed to the Stadium." Pasadena has already hosted a pair of public scoping meetings. Public comment for the NOP ends April 18--then the city and the Rose Bowl Operating Committee (which is paying half the bill for the study) will proceed with an environmental impact review. Meanwhile, there have been stories that AEG and the city of LA would rather have the NFL stay at the LA Memorial Coliseum.
· NFL at Rose Bowl: Pasadena approves $400,000 impact study [KPCC]
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