New-Look Coliseum Plans Nearly Done : Renovation: Work on the facility, with a capacity of under 70,000, probably will begin after 1992 football season.

Schematic drawings of a reconstructed Coliseum will be submitted by the project’s Kansas City architects about July 10 and be publicly released in a draft environmental impact report by the end of the month.

That is the word in the wake of a meeting Monday by many of the principals in the proposed $145-million Coliseum renovation.

The renovation would not begin until the end of the Los Angeles Raiders’ 1992 season.

The Raiders and USC would play football elsewhere in the Los Angeles-Orange County metropolitan area in the 1993 season and possibly in 1994, if the work was not complete by then. No announcements have been made, but there have been reports the Raiders might play in Dodger Stadium and USC in Anaheim Stadium.

Participants in the planning process reported Tuesday that the architectural firm of HNTB, hired by the Coliseum’s private managers, the Spectacor partnership, has been engaged in delicate talks with preservationists from the Los Angeles Conservancy over how to build a new Coliseum that would preserve the most important historic characteristics of the old.

The challenge is to keep intact the traditional peristyle and the outer walls of the 68-year-old facility, the site of two of the modern Olympic Games, while downsizing the capacity of the stadium and constructing luxury boxes and elite club seating.

Coliseum Commission president N. Matthew Grossman said Tuesday: “My understanding is that good progress is being made with respect to the historic issues. There are not any material problems that haven’t been properly addressed.”

Grossman said the July deadlines for the schematic drawings and issuance of the draft environmental impact report “are our present expectations.

“But knowing this process is fraught with delays and contingencies, they could slip a little bit,” he added. “I’m hopeful they won’t.”

After the draft report is released, there will be a 45-day period for public comment and, probably sometime in September, a public hearing on the environmental impact report.

It is then expected that a final report will be issued 30 to 60 days after the hearing.

A hearing on the scope of the environmental issues in December indicated there is very little opposition to renovating the Coliseum, which has been showing its age. Renovation and downsizing the facility from its present capacity of 92,516 to under 70,000 was a condition of the Raiders agreeing last year to stay in Los Angeles.

Financing for the project will be mostly private, except for a $15 million long-term loan of Coliseum Commission funds won in a lawsuit against the NFL for impeding the Raider move to the Coliseum from Oakland in the early 1980s.

Spectacor, which is responsible for the reconstruction project and for managing the new Coliseum, reportedly has secured new financial backers in recent months and is confident of adequate private investment to pursue the project.

Terry Miller of the HNTB architectural firm said Tuesday that there has been extensive work “with the tenants (Spectacor) and the historic preservationists in refining the design.

“A project of this magnitude always has checks and balances,” Miller said. “But I am really pleased with all the efforts. Everyone has been very cooperative.”

Bill Delvac, chairman of the Conservancy’s Coliseum task force, said that only a couple of issues remain before the Conservancy will be able to give its support to the renovation.

He said one of these involved the profile of the lower bowl within the stadium, below the elite seating. In the past, planners have indicated they intended to lower the level of the playing field and draw lower rows of seats in over the present Olympic track to bring spectactors closer to the football field.

Delvac said that in May HNTB presented a “very sophisticated, well-thought out scheme” to the Conservancy board, and that a number of other interested parties were invited to the presentation. The meeting succeeded in narrowing the issues, he said.

“I do think there’s a good chance of a meeting of minds here,” he said.