CRE Players And Angels Owner Debut New Stadium Plans

Within the next 10 or 20 years or so, going to a Los Angeles Angels game in Anaheim will be a remarkably different experience.

Rather than driving through a mostly vacant Platinum Triangle, parking your car and heading straight to the stadium, guests arriving on game days in the future could enjoy a lively retail, dining and entertainment scene on the 153-acre site.

A company affiliated with Los Angeles Angels owner Arte Moreno has submitted its privately financed, 30-year master-plan vision of what the stadium and its surrounding land could look like in the future.

SRB Management, a business entity controlled by Moreno and his family members, envisions a 45,500-seat baseball stadium anchoring a mixed-use megadevelopment, just a couple of miles from Disneyland Resort and the Anaheim Convention Center.

SRB said it is planning to build 5,175 residential units, 2.7M SF of office, 1.1M SF of commercial retail, dining and entertainment, a 943-key hotel and a 5-acre park around the stadium. Part of that plan also allows SRB to renovate or build a new stadium but that has not been determined yet, an Angels spokeswoman told Bisnow.

Newport Beach-based real estate advisory firm Brooks Street is serving as a development adviser and IBI Group as the master-plan architect. Other development partners would be considered at a later date, the spokeswoman said.

"The stadium development plan will realize the vision of the Platinum Triangle decades before the lease allows," Angels owner Moreno said in a statement sent to Bisnow. "The plan is an important step in creating a driving economic force, while investing in Anaheim.” 

The development vision comes six months after Moreno received tentative approvals from the city council for his real estate company to acquire the city-owned stadium and the 153-acre land surrounding the stadium for $325M.

The $325M agreed-upon price tag could also be lowered if SRB agrees to build projects that benefit the community such as parks, affordable housing and accepts project labor agreements, the city said.

An Angels spokeswoman told Bisnow that she could not disclose the estimated cost of the development because it could change as it goes through the approval process. The development will be privately financed, but a city spokesman said it could partner with the company on accessing federal and state grants for roads and parks.

"That would be the extent of public involvement," Anaheim spokesman Mike Lyster said.

The city and Moreno had been at odds for a decade about the future of the stadium and the site. For years, Moreno had wanted the city to pay for infrastructure improvements and renovations for the aging stadium, which is the fourth-oldest in Major League Baseball. The stadium opened in 1966. Meanwhile, the city, under previous leadership, had balked, arguing Moreno should pay for the stadium repairs estimated at around $200M.

That impasse led to Moreno opting out of his stadium lease in 2018 and flirting with the nearby city of Long Beach and other cities to relocate the team.

With a newly elected mayor and other members of the city council, Moreno and the city finally came up with an agreement.

The agreement, which passed in December, allows SRB Management, the business entity controlled by Moreno, to acquire the site that includes the stadium, its parking lots and the City National Grove of Anaheim entertainment venue.

The team will also remain in Anaheim through at least 2050.

"For too long, the fate of baseball in Anaheim was unclear," Anaheim Mayor Harry Sidhu said in a statement to Bisnow. "Now there is a clear path forward with this proposal for neighborhoods, parks, open spaces, shopping, dining and entertainment, all built around baseball."

Sidhu said this plan in Anaheim has the potential to bring the same great baseball experience in places such as San Diego, San Francisco and other cities, where its baseball stadiums have mixed-use commercial developments around it.

"Not only does this proposal speak to our vision for baseball in Anaheim, the investment will help move our city past the economic impacts of coronavirus in years to come," Sidhu said.

SRB's master-plan vision, though, still has a long way to go. 

The plan will undergo planning and California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, environmental review sometime this summer. 

The public will then be able to weigh in on the project at a planning commission meeting to be held sometime in August or September, a city spokesman said. 

Later this year, the city council will hold a series of public hearings to review the master-site plan, the development agreement, the Angels commitment agreement, lease assignment and finalize the purchase and sale agreement, Anaheim spokesman Lyster said.