L.A. Rainmaker
Billionaire Eli Broad wants nothing less than to remake his adopted city
While that sentiment is widely shared, not everyone thinks those hands should be Broad's. "You have to admire Eli Broad's ability to make billions of dollars. He's obviously very intelligent and has great capabilities," says Hal Vogel, a longtime media industry analyst in New York. "But neither he nor Burkle comesto mind as tremendous operating managers, and neither one of them knows the media business."
There are other concerns as well: namely, that Broad and Burkle-not to mention Geffen-with their megafortunes and egos to match, would not be able to keep from meddling in the paper's coverage, particularly when it was directed at them. Broad, who has a reputation as a control freak's control freak, has said that he would not assume an active role in management and that he would stay out of the newsroom. "I've got enough other things going on right now to take a publishing role," says Broad, in the flat midwestern accent he acquired during his childhood in Detroit. "I'm too busy for that."
Those who know Broad well aren't buying it. "I'm not saying Eli's lying, but that's not him. Eli doesn't just write a check and get out of the way," says a close friend. "When you're trying to do the things he's doing, there's no reason to buy the Times unless there's some intent to shape people's thinking."
Big checks. That said, Broad's claims of being oversubscribed are hard to dispute. He has been building his legacy and throwing his financial weight around lately at a rate that makes his hiking pace look sluggish. In the past year alone, the former CEO of tract-home giant KB Home and annuities empire SunAmerica (now part of AIG) sank $100 million more into the recently established Eli and Edythe Broad Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Mass. He also pledged $25 million to the University of Southern California for new stem cell research laboratories and nearly $9 million to establish the Broad Fellows Program in Brain Circuitry at the California Institute of Technology. Furthering his efforts to reform public education, he gave $10.5 million to open 21 small charter high schools in L.A. and bestowed the annual $500,000 Broad Prize for Urban Education on the Boston public schools. On the cultural front, Broad donated $6 million to the Los Angeles Opera to stage Wagner's Ring cycle; christened the $23 million Eli and Edythe Broad Art Center at UCLA, and broke ground on the $60 million (all from Broad) Broad Contemporary Art Museum at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. When it is completed, it will be a home for Broad's $1 billion-plus collection of contemporary art.
"He's a superdoer," says former Mayor Riordan, who with his gregarious nature and Republican politics plays Oscar to Broad's circumspect and left-leaning Felix. "If I had any genius when I was mayor, it was getting people like Eli to implement major projects. All I had to do was call him, and that was the beginning and the end of my work." A tireless cheerleader for the city, Broad was instrumental in creating the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in 1979 and spearheaded the $135 million fundraising drive in 1996 that rescued Walt Disney Concert Hall after missteps nearly sank architect Frank Gehry's glistening landmark. Now, as chairman of the $1.8 billion Grand Avenue Project, Broad is out to manufacture the "downtown" he believes L.A. is missing. The Gehry-designed project, with its wide sidewalks, shops, theaters, restaurants, office towers, five-star hotel, and 16-acre park, is intended to be to the city what the Champs-Elysées (aka the Champs Eli) is to Paris. "Los Angeles is divided culturally and geographically, and it needs a vibrant center where everyone can come together," says Broad, who adds that L.A.'s vastness unnerved him when he first moved here in the 1960s because he didn't understand it. Some critics think he still doesn't.
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