ANAHEIM : District to Offer Rams Longer Lease

The Los Angeles Rams will be offered an extension on their lease of the former school that serves as their practice site, but the Magnolia School District says the $120,000 annual rent the team pays will have to be increased.

The Board of Trustees, in a unanimous vote Monday, said that the district will not need to reclaim Rams Park--formerly known as Juliette Low School--before Jan. 1, 1996, but that it will not sell the school to the National Football League team or the city.

“We don’t have any direct need for the school now, but in five years we might need it,” Supt. Arch J. Haskins said. Neither he nor the board named a figure for the team’s new rent, saying that would have to be negotiated.

Citing overcrowding at the district’s eight schools, the trustees had wanted to wait until July 1 before making a decision about extending the lease, which is due to expire Dec. 31, 1993.

But the city, which is contractually obligated to build the team a new $7-million facility if it loses Rams Park, said it needed a decision by Feb. 15. In a Jan. 15 letter City Manager James D. Ruth wrote to the district, the city offered to buy the school and, short of that, agreed to talk about a lease extension.

On Tuesday, Ruth said he was “very pleased” with the district’s offer and said he would sit down with Haskins within a week to begin negotiations.

“We recognize the Magnolia board’s main responsibility is to educate the students of that area, and with the increased enrollment, there might come the day when they’ll have to take back the school,” Ruth said. “But the Rams need additional building space and are not ready to make a major capital investment without some security about their future at the school. And if a move was needed, the city needed the time to look for a site.”

The Rams took over Low school in 1978 as part of the agreement with the city to move to Anaheim Stadium from the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The team moved in 1980.

The city became obligated to build the team a practice site in the mid-1980s after the Rams filed a lawsuit against the city over a problem with Anaheim Stadium’s parking lot. In return for the Rams dropping the suit, the city agreed to be responsible for buying the team a new practice facility if the need arose.