Anaheim’s city council took a secondary vote tonight to finalize the sale of a 150-acre portion of land that includes Angel Stadium to SRB Management, a company owned by Angels owner Arte Moreno. Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times reported on the council’s initial vote last week, which approved the deal and made tonight’s vote something of a rubber stamp on the project.
The city of Anaheim will receive $150MM in cash in the deal, while the Angels will agree to keep the team in Anaheim through at least the 2050 season and also include affordable housing projects and a community park as part of SRB’s development plans for the land surrounding the ballpark. As well, any development projects will follow “a labor agreement…which provides for union jobs and prioritizes local hiring.”
The deal wasn’t without controversy, however. The city council had initially agreed on a $325MM deal for the land last December, though the housing and park projects will now effectively serve as very sizeable credit in taking that $325MM price tag down to $150MM. Two members of the city council voted against the deal, arguing that SRB should have paid the full initial $325MM since the extra money would have been better spent on projects throughout the city, not solely on the Angel Stadium property.
It now seems all but official that the Angels will remain in Anaheim for years, as the deal includes “language to explicitly limit the Angels’ options to playing in a renovated Angel Stadium or a new stadium that would be built on the adjacent parking lot.” Furthermore, Anaheim mayor Harry Sidhu said that the team would be paying for any renovations or a new ballpark in the future, rather than the city.