Hamilton County officials today have taken a beating on the $400.3 million cost of the Bengals stadium complex. A 1995 estimate pegged football costs at $245 million, but it didn't take into account inflation, union wages and $10 million for three riverfront practice fields the county promised the Bengals.

The average interest rate on the $44 million bond issue in 1968 was 4.95 percent. County commissioners locked in an average rate of 4.87 percent for a $71 million bond issue last month.

Of course, commissioners still have an estimated $250 million in bonds to issue for the new Paul Brown Stadium, scheduled to open in August 2000. And the cost of a Reds stadium is anyone's guess. City and county officials needed each other to build Riverfront Stadium. Back then, the county issued the bonds to build the stadium, and the city paid off the debt and managed the facility.

But there are plenty of important differences between the stadium negotiations of the 1960s and those of today.

Mr. Bedinghaus points out that in the 1960s, county officials were content to play a ''supporting role'' in building Riverfront. The current stadium project would not have moved forward without the plan to increase the county sales tax, he said.

The city and county cooperation also was much smoother in the 1960s, in part because both city council and the county commission were controlled by Republicans.

''At that time, political parties counted for a little more in disciplining their party members,'' Mr. Miller said.

Mr. Bedinghaus added, ''Politics today is different. One of our most ardent critics has been Phil Heimlich, a Republican city council member. That's a difference.''

In many ways, the decision to build Riverfront in the 1960s was driven by the desire to keep the Reds downtown when the team was shopping for a home to replace Crosley Field ballpark, Mr. Miller said.

The current stadium project was driven in large part by Mr. Brown's threat to move the Bengals to Baltimore.

For Mr. Brown, the differences loom larger than the similarities. This time, the stadium issue went before the voters when they were asked to approve a half-cent-on-a-dollar sales tax increase in March 1996. It passed with 61 percent of the vote. There was no taxpayer vote in the 1960s.

Many more groups had input and approval of the deal this time than last. ''Approval had to come from one group after another, groups that we didn't really have to clear with last time out or groups who were not nearly so difficult to convince last time out,'' he said.

Mr. Brown likened opposition to Paul Brown Stadium to a ''Hydra head.''

''No sooner do you cut one off than another pops up,'' he said. The business community provided ''enthusiastic support'' 30 years ago, he said. While the business community was helpful and supportive at the end of the stadium negotiations among the city, county and team this time, that support wasn't there throughout, Mr. Brown said.

''I was younger and more hopeful, maybe. But with Riverfront Stadium, I never really doubted,'' Mr. Brown said. ''With this project, there was time after time that I had my doubts.''

This time around, the stadium project also became much larger in scope, Mr. Brown said. In the 1960s, the idea was to build a state-of-the-art stadium to keep the Reds downtown and bring football to Cincinnati. Now the stadiums are viewed as a catalyst to transform the city's riverfront into something more than parking and warehouses.

Mr. Ruehlmann, whose Fourth Street law office provides him a view of Cinergy Field, says today's stadium headlines ''absolutely'' give him an almost daily sense of reliving history.

''The big deadline was that we had to have a stadium built by 1970 in order to get the (NFL) franchise,'' Mr. Ruehlmann said.

When he and other city, county and team leaders had the stadium's ceremonial ground-breaking Feb. 1, 1968, they still had not secured a football team.

City leaders went to New York City that May to meet with American Football League officials about getting a team. They were shocked when AFL officials said they would delay the decision by several months because they didn't like the ownership arrangement proposed for the Cincinnati Bengals.

''Ultimately, it all worked out,'' Mr. Ruehlmann said. ''We worked until midnight writing out a new agreement concerning the ownership of the Bengals.''

Even that parallels recent meetings between city and county negotiators who worked many nights past midnight. The deal ultimately was passed by city council at 1:15 a.m. Feb. 1.

When Riverfront Stadium was being built, city leaders never imagined it would one day be termed obsolete by the teams that share it. ''This was a state-of-the-art facility,'' Mr. Ruehlmann said. ''If anybody had told me 30 years ago we would be building another stadium on the riverfront, I would have said, 'Impossible!' We thought this was going to last forever.''

County officials fought hard to get a 26-year commitment from the Bengals for the team's new, football-only riverfront stadium. They talk about new state-of-the-art homes for the Bengals and Reds as structures that they hope will last another 30 years, not as permanent monuments.

''Part of the mentality now is that we will have to redo or rehabilitate these facilities in 20 or 30 years,'' said Mr. Miller of UC. ''Forever is no more.''

Mr. Bedinghaus hopes he doesn't find himself playing the role of Mr. Ruehlmann with some new county commissioner 30 years from now who has an idea for keeping the city's sports teams in town.

He added, ''it wouldn't surprise me a bit'' if that's exactly what happens.

But Mr. Brown, the only player in the current stadium struggles who was directly involved in the last deal, said he isn't looking for another new stadium in 30 years.

Mr. Brown blames the changing economics of the NFL for making professional sports much more expensive and rendering Cinergy Field obsolete.

''I've been through this twice now, which is probably twice too much for anybody. I wouldn't wish that on my children or the community,'' he said. ''I pray that this is what I thought the last one was - a permanent solution.''