Rams Reportedly In Talks To Buy Warner Center Mall Slated For Mixed-Use Redevelopment
The Los Angeles Chargers have planted a flag in the South Bay, building their headquarters and practice facility in El Segundo. Now it seems the Super Bowl-winning LA Rams may be putting down roots to the north, in the San Fernando Valley.
The Rams are in talks to buy the site of the Westfield Promenade from Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield and redevelop it as a practice facility, the Los Angeles Times reported, citing sources not authorized to speak publicly. The deal would have the Rams paying $150M to purchase the Warner Center site for use as a training camp, according to the LA Times.
Local representatives for URW, which is headquartered in France, did not respond to a request for comment from Bisnow. Rams ownership The Kroenke Group declined to comment.
The mall property is the 34-acre site that URW spent more than five years securing approvals to redevelop into a massive mixed-use development, Promenade 2035. The $1.5B mixed-use mini-neighborhood would contain 1,400 residential units, 630K SF of office space and hotels. The plans also allow for an entertainment and sports venue with up to 10,000 seats. An outdoor venue would be permitted up to 7,500 seats.
The city council approved the project in December 2020.
“This will allow URW to commence implementation planning and advance the ability to deliver this important project,” the company said in a statement at the time, but a groundbreaking date was not announced and in the months since then, company representatives have said there were no updates on a construction timeline.
In February 2021, URW announced that it was planning to start selling off its retail holdings in the U.S., but so far has not publicly revealed the details of that plan or whether this project is one of the properties on the chopping block.
The LA Times speculated that the mall site, at 34 acres, has more than enough space for the practice grounds that could host the team's training camp as well as a team headquarters. The Rams currently practice west of the mall location, at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks. In the past, they have staged training camp at UC Irvine because the Thousand Oaks site doesn’t have room to accommodate fans, the Daily News reported.
The site also has plenty of room to build a mixed-use development around the team facilities later, the LA Times noted.
“That would echo [Rams owner Stan Kroenke’s] strategy at SoFi Stadium: buy the property, build the stadium, then develop the land around it,” according to the LA Times.
At the Inglewood stadium that is home to both the Rams and Chargers, Kroenke did what other professional sports teams had done before, buying a nearly 300-acre site, building a $5B stadium — the NFL’s most expensive to date — and now adding as many as 2,500 residential units, plus 890K SF of retail, creative office space and a 300-room hotel around the venue.
