ANAHEIM, Calif. (Oct. 6, 2020) — The Anaheim City Council, in votes on Sept. 30 and Oct. 6, has approved keeping Angels Baseball in the city through at least 2050, selling the city’s stadium and surrounding land for $320 million and seeing development of an urban village with homes, hotels, offices, jobs and public transit.
“We have made history,” Mayor Harry Sidhu said. “What have been far too many years of uncertainty and inaction in Anaheim are now over. We have secured baseball while freeing our city from the costs of stadium ownership. Our residents will benefit for years to come as valuable, underutilized land gives way to a stadium area we can all be proud of.”
The approval calls for:
- The Angels to play in Anaheim through at least 2050 with five five-year extensions or through 2075.
- Selling 150 acres of land and Angel Stadium of Anaheim for an appraised market value of $320 million.
- Payment to city of $150 million in cash and $170 million in 466 affordable apartments for working families and a 7-acre flagship public park.
- Development of stadium land as homes, offices, hotels, restaurants, shops, entertainment and parks and open spaces, driving new city revenue from property, sales and hotel taxes.
Approval of the agreement comes after nearly a year of discussions, negotiations and formulation between the city and SRB Management LLC, made up of Angels owner Arte Moreno and family, and Angels Baseball LP, the operating company for the baseball team.
The approval follows unsuccessful attempts in 2013-14 and in 2016 to secure baseball’s long-term future in Anaheim as well as development around the stadium.
You can read more history and background here.
Angels in Anaheim
The Angels have played in Anaheim since 1966. With the agreement, the team is committing to play at Angel Stadium of Anaheim, or any replacement stadium in Anaheim, for the next 30 years or more.
The team would play regular home games in Anaheim, with exceptions for any games played abroad, as the Angels did in 2019 serving as home team for a two-game series against the Houston Astros in Monterrey, Mexico.
The commitment agreement, between the city and Angels Baseball, precludes relocation of the team to another city, an issue that came up in 2014 when the Angels looked at Los Angeles, Carson, Irvine and Tustin, and in 2018 when the team looked at Long Beach.
Selling stadium, land
The city of Anaheim, which built what is today Angel Stadium of Anaheim in 1966 and has owned it since, is selling the stadium and 150 acres of land for $320 million to SRB Management.
The land around the stadium is set to see development while the stadium is expected to be renovated or replaced by a new one.
The sale will end 50-plus years of city stadium ownership and put any future maintenance, renovation or stadium construction costs solely in the hands of SRB Management.
Payment: cash
The city will see $150 million in cash from the sale, including $45 million due in October.
That adds to $5 million paid in December 2019 with City Council approval at that time of an initial purchase and sale agreement.
The agreement calls for the remaining $100 million to be paid in equal yearly payments starting in late 2021 or early 2022 at 2.35 percent interest projected at $4.7 million.
Payment: affordable apartments, park
The balance of the $320 million purchase price comes in the form of 466 affordable apartments at $123.7 million and a 7-acre flagship public park at $46.2 million.
Anaheim sought these community benefits as part of the sale of the property to ensure homes for working families and a park for our entire city as part of development.
Without the agreement, SRB, as buyer and developer, would not be required to provide affordable homes and would not be required to provide additional park space beyond the 5.2 acres that are part of the development plan.
For $123.7 million, SRB will provide 466 affordable apartments built alongside market-rate apartments in what’s known as inclusionary affordable housing, which creates economically mixed communities.
More than half of the affordable apartments, 259, will be for a category known as very low income households earning 50 percent of the county’s median income.
The rest, 207 apartments, will be for lower income households earning about 80 percent of the county’s median income.
Beyond 466 affordable homes, SRB is required to make sure 15 percent of all homes are affordable, building up to 311 additional affordable apartments at its own cost for low income households and moderate income households at up to 120 percent of the county median income.
At $46.2 million, the park will go well beyond an everyday park with extensive landscaping, mature trees, fountains, experience spaces, art, play areas, open spaces and free public parking.
The idea is for an iconic park like San Diego’s Balboa Park or Griffith in Los Angeles. The best example of a park of similar size and cost is Santa Monica’s Tongva Park, a 6.2-acre, $42 million park opened in 2013 and considered one of Southern California's best parks.
Development
A master site plan for the stadium land calls for development of parking lots as homes, hotels, restaurants, shops, parks and public spaces.
The idea is to create the kind of setting seen around stadiums in San Diego, San Francisco, St. Louis and Chicago or arenas in Sacramento, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Anaheim has long planned for the redevelopment of the stadium area and has already seen apartments, breweries, restaurants and offices replace warehouses and other older uses in the past decade.
In coming years, SRB’s stadium development plan calls for up to:
- Housing: 5,175 apartments and condominiums, with 777 affordable apartments throughout
- Office: 2.7 million square feet
- Commercial: 1.75 million square feet of retail, restaurants, hotels
- Hotels: 943 rooms
- Parks: 7-acre flagship city park, plus 5.2 acres of community park space required with development
The plan also calls for a renovated Angel Stadium of Anaheim or a new 45,000-seat stadium.
Anaheim’s City Council initially approved the entire agreement on Sept. 30.
On Oct. 6, the Council approved a disposition and development agreement covering development of the land and an amendment to the zoning section of Anaheim’s Municipal Code in a required second hearing for those items.
The agreement calls for closure of a sale in late 2021 or early 2022 with city review and approval of what is known as a vesting tentative tract map, which divides the land up for development.
You can see agreements and much more at Anaheim.net/BigA.