There’s a new game in town for oversight of Angels Stadium in Anaheim.
In last month’s election, voters picked a new mayor and put new people in three of the six council seats in the OC city that hosts the MLB team now up for sale, the Orange County Register reported.
As fans place bets on which billionaire or private equity firm might buy the team, would-be buyers may look to determine how Anaheim’s new leadership would act as a potential landlord.
It’ll be up to newly elected Mayor Ashleigh Aitken and the City Council to decide Angel Stadium’s future, and they see the sale of the baseball team as “a tremendous opportunity to hit the reset button,” as Aitken put it.
The team has leased the city-owned stadium since it was built in 1966. A $320 million deal to sell the 152-acre stadium property to Angels owner Arte Moreno’s business partnership fell apart in May.
That was shortly after the former mayor who led the deal resigned amid corruption allegations. He has not been charged and claims to have done nothing wrong.
MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said this month that the Angels hope to “have the sale resolved before Opening Day,” and prospective bidders are looking over team finances.
Maintenance and improvements to the 56-year-old stadium are one big question mark hanging over any potential sale.
A 2013 estimate pegged stadium upgrades around $150 million, and “(with) inflation alone, you’re likely looking at double that today,” Anaheim spokesman Mike Lyster said.
The needed upgrades would fall to a new owner, who will inherit a lease that runs through 2029. That maintenance could factor into the team’s sale price, unless a new owner wants to build a new ballpark.
The new council is a fresh start after repeated criticisms that the city-commissioned stadium appraisal was low-balled, that key decisions regarding the sale were made out of the public eye, and that the former mayor was pushing a deal that benefitted the team’s owner at the expense of Anaheim residents, according to the Register.
The prior council voted to seek bids for a full assessment of the stadium’s condition and what fixes it needs, with proposals expected by next summer.
New District 3 Councilmember Natalie Rubalcava said the $320 million sale price agreed to by the prior council was “undervalued.”
She would like to see an independent expert on commercial real estate advise the council on the merits of negotiating a new lease, versus selling the stadium.
Natalie Meeks, the new District 6 councilmember, said she’d like to see a new appraisal, or at least an update to the old one, which was completed in 2019. She wants to keep the Angels in Anaheim.
“I think the land needs to be tied to the team for a long period of time,” Meeks said. “I would hate to sell that land and then have the owner move the team and then develop it.
“Everybody that I talked to, they want the Angels to stay – it’s part of Anaheim and who we are.”
— Dana Bartholomew
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