The new mayor of Anaheim will ask the City Council Tuesday to consider a one-year stadium lease extension for the Los Angeles Angels.
Mayor Harry Sidhu, who was elected in November, said he recently met with Angels owner Arte Moreno and the two discussed ways to keep the team in Anaheim.
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“From that meeting, it is clear the team’s priority is to stay in Anaheim, if we can work out a deal that benefits our residents, the city and the team,” Sidhu said in a news release. “We need a plan to make that happen, and we need time to make that happen.”
Angels owner Arte Moreno said his goal is to work with the new City Council and come up with an agreement to remain in Anaheim.
“After meeting with Anaheim Mayor Harry Sidhu, we realized a one-year extension will give us adequate time to work collaboratively on a long-term relationship,” Moreno said in an email.
The meeting between the Angels and the new head of Orange County’s largest city appears to be a good sign for the two entities to finally come together on a long-term agreement.
For years, the Angels and the city have been at an impasse over who is responsible for paying for an estimated $200M in renovations and basic improvements to the 53-year-old, city-owned Angel Stadium.
Angel Stadium is the fourth-oldest baseball stadium in Major League Baseball.
The 150-acre stadium site is an important piece and a main commercial anchor in the middle of the city's growing Platinum Triangle, an 820-acre area that is seeing more than $1B in multifamily, office, retail and entertainment commercial real estate investments.
In October, the Angels terminated their lease agreement with the city. Under the current agreement, the Angels will remain in Anaheim until the end of this year.
If the City Council approves the extension, the team will remain in Anaheim through the end of 2020.
Sidhu said an extension would be the first step toward negotiating a new, long-term lease for the Angels in Anaheim.
"This will give us time to find a deal that first benefits residents as well as the city and the team with a goal of keeping baseball in Anaheim for another 50 years or more," Sidhu said.
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