Appraisal confirms: Angels seeking $245m in land to fund $150m in renovations

One more important news item from last week: On Friday, the city of Anaheim released its appraisal of the value of the Los Angeles Angels parking lots that team owner Arte Moreno wants to get for free in exchange for renewing his lease. And the verdict is:

The appraised value of the Stadium Site under premise #1, the Angels’ lease is renewed, is:

• $225M under a leasehold scenario and
• $245M under a fee simple, or sale, scenario.

Both approaches to value, in premise #1, include consideration of the need to continue to provide 12,500 parking spaces for stadium events, shared with new, commercial development on the site.

The appraised value of the Stadium Site under premise #2, the Angels’ lease is not renewed and the team relocates, is:

• $300M under a leasehold scenario and
• $325M under a fee simple, or sale, scenario.

Both approaches to value, in premise #2, do not include the need to continue to provide 12,500 parking spaces for stadium events.

Or put even more simply: The parking lots are worth $245 million with the Angels sitting in the middle of them, and $325 million if the Angels were to clear out. That’s a hell of a lot of value that Anaheim would be giving away, toward the top end of the $30 million to $380 million estimates that had been made previously, and about twice what the Angels would need to pay for their proposed renovations.

Angels execs haven’t responded yet to the appraisal — beyond last week’s letter complaining that putting a value on the land at all might give the general public the idea that the land is valuable — but Anaheim Mayor Tom Tait did say that he thinks the city should share in development profits once Moreno’s stadium upgrades are paid off. That’s actually pretty reasonable — probably overly reasonable, given how easy it is for sports team owners to hide profits — but somehow I don’t expect Moreno to jump at the opportunity.

Other Recent Posts:

Share this post: