After getting granted a one-month extension by the Anaheim city council, Los Angeles Angels owner Arte Moreno has come out with his redevelopment plan for the Angel Stadium land he got from the city at a bargain price last winter, and the whole thing is so handwavy that it makes you wonder why he couldn’t have just made a crayon drawing of some buildings and released that on time in May. Let’s see what Moreno’s planning team came up with:
That is indeed a bunch of numbers of things! Can we get any renderings that aren’t just bird’s-eye schematics?
That’s a little better, I guess, though still pretty generic, aside from somebody coloring in the roofs green because that what one does in 2020.
More to the point, there’s nothing that I can find in Moreno’s plans that indicates a timeline: Is he actually committing to building all this stuff, or just sketching out pretty pictures of what it might look like if he decides this is a good idea? (Past “ballpark village” concepts, it’s worth noting, haven’t always immediately panned out as planned, and have sometimes come with requests for more public money to make them happen.) Presumably if the city of Anaheim is selling him the land because they want it developed, there should be some rules about when it will be developed by — maybe that’s still in the “TBD” folder, but if so, what’s the point of releasing this plan now?
As for what will happen to the stadium itself, we learn this from the Los Angeles Times:
The Angels put off for now the decision to renovate Angel Stadium or replace it. If the Angels decide to build a new ballpark, the plan calls for it to be located immediately adjacent to the 57 Freeway, and closer to the Anaheim train station. If they renovate, they plan to open up the outfield and turn it into a grand entrance plaza.
Definitely one of those things! Maybe.
Let’s see, anything else remotely of note here? There’s a guy pointing randomly at the sky outside a bistro called “Bistro,” and oh hey check it out:
Yes, that is indeed Cab-Hailing Purse Woman, though someone has tried to disguise her true intent by placing a giant foam finger over her cab-hailing hand. If this clip-art woman is indeed the key to all sports-related economic development plans, maybe it would cheaper for cities just to buy her plane tickets (on clip-art airplanes, obviously) so she can bestow her presence on their populaces? Do you think she’s based on a real person, and if so does that person get royalties? Did anyone at the rendering software company think to shop around for a purse company that would pay for product placement? So very many questions, so few answers.
These pics and the initial LA Times reporting gave me a hearty laugh.
Regarding a timeline, my understanding is that the incentive to develop isn’t a contracted timeline, but rather kickbacks on the purchase price once the things the city wants (parks, housing, etc.) are developed.
Further kickbacks on the announced purchase price, or kickbacks to get it down to the announced price? Is there a link you can direct us to?
Kickbacks from the $325 million purchase price. That’s how I understand this passage in the LA Times article:
“$325 million, subject to discounts for affordable housing, open space and a community benefits agreement”
They would just generate a person from this website to avoid paying clip art likeness royalties.
https://thispersondoesnotexist.com/
*They could
I, for one, salute our new nonexistent-person overlords.
Newly installed Coyotes president says top priority is arena solution
https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/29359004
This is different from? unrelated to? the Ducks’ rendering fiesta across the freeway?
“ocV!BE” lmao
Different from/not entirely related to.
Is there a reason the average person would want to move their home and/or their business to live in the shadow of a baseball stadium?
Southern California is — or at least was, who knows how the world will work post-Covid — in the middle of a huge housing crunch, so it’s conceivable this new development would attract residents, just as happened in Brooklyn around the Barclays Center. Having the stadium there likely isn’t a huge draw in itself, though.
Weren’t there people living in and around the area of Barclays before it existed? I seem to recall Ratner asked the city/county to eminent domain them right out of their relatively new condos so he could demolish same to build housing to attract people to blighted and underpopulated, um, Brooklyn.
Wait, what?
It wouldn’t just be the stadium but the overall development, but yes there are people who would like to live in a neighborhood anchored by a stadium.