Club Votes to Sell Anaheim Land for Arena

Members of a private club voted overwhelmingly Friday night to sell their seven-acre headquarters property to Anaheim for $8 million, removing what officials described as the final roadblock in the city’s plan to build an indoor sports arena northeast of Anaheim Stadium.

“This is a tremendous shot in the arm for us,” said James Ruth, Anaheim assistant city manager and lead negotiator on the arena project. “I don’t think there’s anything that can stop us now.”

The decision by about 1,300 members of the Phoenix Club, a social organization for families of German descent, places Anaheim squarely in the race with Santa Ana to see which city will be home to Orange County’s first indoor sports arena.

10-to-1 Margin

Neither city has contracted with a professional basketball or hockey franchise, which experts consider necessary to operate an arena successfully. Nevertheless, Ruth estimates that Anaheim will start construction in January, 1990. The Santa Ana project is scheduled to break ground three months later.

The margin of victory was 10 to 1, according to Phoenix Club attorney Michael Leifer. He said the vote authorizes the club’s board of directors to negotiate the final terms.

Before the meeting, several members strongly expressed a willingness to accept the city’s offer.

“We probably are fortunate there is this city of Anaheim ...that is willing to pay so much for it,” said Hans Klein. Klein, an unopposed candidate Friday night for president of the club, could be heard telling club members during the meeting that the city “would do everything they can to help us” move to a different site.

“This is the best choice, and we are in for a bright future if you all stick together,” Klein said.

Plans call for Anaheim’s 21,000-seat arena, estimated to cost $85 million, to be built on the seven acres of Phoenix Club land east of the Orange Freeway at Katella Avenue; parking will be on 17 acres next to the Santa Ana River. The parking land will be leased from Orange County.

The city initially offered the Phoenix Club $6.4 million for its property, but the club’s board of directors thought the land was worth more. So after more than four months of negotiations, city officials increased their offer to $8 million, to include compensation for the loss of land, improvements made to the building and good-will costs associated with moving a business. an organization. The city will also secure a parcel of city-owned land elsewhere in Anaheim where the club’s new home can be built.

The effort to build an arena in Anaheim has suffered several setbacks in recent months. In May, the Board of Supervisors dumped plans to sell the city 7.6 acres of county land near Anaheim Stadium because the property was being considered as a site for a county jail--one that supervisors have since decided to put in Gypsum Canyon.

A few weeks after that, Santa Ana officials announced plans for a $75-million arena that would be built on 17 acres at Edinger Avenue and Lyon Street, to be financed with private money.

If the Phoenix Club had rejected the city’s proposal, Ruth said Anaheim would have been faced with trying to take the property by eminent domain or scrapping the project altogether.

Securing the Phoenix Club land, however, would change the odds in the arena derby, Anaheim Councilman Tom Daly said.

“I think it makes (Santa Ana’s) project less likely,” Daly said. “Ours is a better location.”

But officials involved in the Santa Ana project said that their plans would not be affected, even if the Phoenix Club deal goes through.

“We’re not looking at Anaheim as even existing,” said Tony Guanci of King/Guanci Development Co., the Newport Beach company that would be the builder for the proposed Santa Ana project. “We’re just looking at our own facility being built.”

The Santa Ana arena, which would have 20,000 seats, is planned as a partnership project with MCA Music Entertainment Group, Spectacor Management Group and the Santa Fe Pacific Realty Co., which owns the land. MCA and Spectacor also are part of a development group that has offered to replace the Los Angeles Sports Arena with a $100-million facility that would be the home for the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team.

The Anaheim arena would be owned by the city but built and managed by Ogden Allied Services and the Nederlander Organization.

Environmental impact reports are now being prepared for the arena sites in both cities.

Guanci said a draft of the Santa Ana report will be presented to city officials Oct. 17.

The Anaheim environmental impact report, begun with the assumption that the Phoenix Club land would be acquired, will be approved by December, Ruth said.