Rams could build a team training site in Woodland Hills
The Super Bowl champions could soon set up camp a kick away from Victory Boulevard.
The Rams are in negotiations to buy the site of the former Woodland Hills Promenade shopping mall and build a team practice facility there, according to people familiar with the talks who are not authorized to discuss them publicly and asked for anonymity.
The Rams and Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, the owners of the mall property, declined to comment.
The Rams’ regular-season run toward the playoffs and a Super Bowl LVI victory started great and was scrutinized after a winless November before they rallied into the playoffs.
If the deal is completed, the Rams could pay more than $150 million for the 34-acre site, which would be large enough to hold a summer training camp with fans in attendance. The Rams have practiced at Cal Lutheran in Thousand Oaks but have staged training camp at UC Irvine.
The Chargers, who share SoFi Stadium with the Rams, announced in November they agreed to move their practice facility from Costa Mesa to El Segundo, as part of a training complex that would include a team headquarters.
The Woodland Hills site is large enough that Rams owner Stan Kroenke could build a practice facility and team headquarters there, then surround it with a mixed-use development. That would echo his strategy at SoFi Stadium: buy the property, build the stadium, then develop the land around it.
“This sounds like a really great opportunity and would be good news if true,” said L.A. City Councilman Bob Blumenfield, whose district includes the would-be Rams training site. “There is a plan in place for a venue at that site that protects the community and could let our Super Bowl champs get something up and running in my district pretty soon, which is incredibly exciting.”
The Rams project would not be the first effort to repurpose the mall property as a sports facility.
The Rams star responded to criticism over video that showed him turn away from the fall that left the photographer with a spine fracture.
In the middle of the last decade, the Dodgers explored moving one of their minor league teams into a new ballpark to be built on the property. The 7,000-seat ballpark would also have been available for concerts, youth competitions, and community events, all next to the existing Village at Topanga. Fans could have dined, shopped and caught a game or show, all without moving their car.
The Angels vetoed the plan. Under Major League Baseball rules, the Dodgers and Angels share the Southland territory, and the Dodgers declined to guarantee they would let the Angels move one of their minor league teams into Los Angeles if that possibility ever arose.
The property owners then envisioned a 15,000-seat sports arena, surrounded by a neighborhood of homes, offices, hotels, shops and restaurants but found no team to play in the arena.
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