Angels star Mike Trout and the Long Beach shorefront (Credit: Getty Images)
A new waterfront stadium for the Los Angeles Angels in Long Beach would cost more than $1.1 billion to build, which would rank it among the most expensive baseball fields ever built.
The city released to the Los Angeles Times Times thousands of pages of documents pertaining to a proposed new stadium this week, in response to requests for records.
Long Beach wants to lure the team from its longtime home in Anaheim, and is studying the construction of a new baseball stadium. City officials have discussed demolishing the existing Long Beach Arena to make way for the proposed stadium.
Under the current estimate, around $900 million would go toward building the actual park, another $200 million toward financing costs, and $105 million toward parking. Parking could cost more, as the city estimated that figure with the assumption that a lot of visitors would park in existing structures nearby.
Meanwhile, a proposed $5 billion sports complex under construction in Inglewood has been met with opposition from some longtime residents, who fear the fast-changing area will soon price them out.
Last year, the Angels and Anaheim had agreed to extend the team’s lease for Angels Stadium through 2020. But Long Beach city officials had reached out to the team as early as 2014, when the Angels were considering a possible move to Tustin, about 25 miles east. Anaheim officials are appraising the 53-year-old baseball stadium and weighing options about the construction of a new one, the Times reported.
The Angels have not committed to move to Long Beach and the city has not yet released a plan to fund a new stadium. If an agreement was reached, the estimated a new stadium could open in 2025, according to the Times. [LAT] — Dennis Lynch