Big A Ruling Has Benefits for Angels, Rams : Courts: Decision OKs a stadium high-rise favored by football team and guarantees ground-level baseball parking.

Ruling in a decade-old battle among the California Angels, Los Angeles Rams and their host city, a state appellate court on Tuesday allowed a portion of a hotly disputed office project in Anaheim Stadium’s parking lot to move forward.

The judgment, issued by the 4th District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana, is Solomon-like: Everyone gets something. It allows a partnership involving the Rams football team to build a high-rise office complex in the stadium parking lot near Orangewood Avenue. But it also guarantees the Angels its 12,000 ground-level parking spaces and eliminated another Rams project near State College Boulevard.

The court’s decision drew a mixed response from the various parties. Rams officials called the ruling “a clear victory” and “total defeat” for the Angels, while a top Angels executive said the club is “pleased” that the court affirmed the ballclub’s right to have its parking spaces but disappointed that it granted permission for any parking lot project.

City officials took a conciliatory position on the court’s ruling, issuing a carefully worded statement in an obvious effort not to offend either of its Anaheim Stadium tenants.

Said City Manager James D. Ruth: “We are hopeful that the clarifications set forth (in the court’s decision) today will provide the basis for the involved parties to end their longstanding dispute.”

It was unclear what impact the ruling might have on the Rams, who have exercised an escape clause in their stadium lease and are looking for a more lucrative stadium deal with other cities.

The Angels are negotiating an extension of their stadium lease with the city. Team officials indicated that the development, if it goes ahead, would play a role in those talks.

The city, meanwhile, maintained that “the unanimous decision is a compromise between the position of the Angels and the positions of the city” and the Rams, according to a prepared statement from the city.

The ruling is the latest development in a lawsuit that has cost more than $20 million in legal fees--one of the most expensive civil lawsuits involving a city in Orange County history.

The battle for the Big A’s parking lot began in 1984 when the city offered the Rams parking lot development rights as part of the deal to lure them to Anaheim and away from Los Angeles.

However, Angels owner Gene Autry sued in Orange County Superior Court, challenging the city’s right to enter into the high-rise office development deal with a partnership involving the owners of the football team.

In the $100-million suit, Autry contended that the city had “sold the same horse twice” because the Angels were leasing the stadium and its accompanying parking lots. The suit said Angel fans have a right to park in ground-level spaces, not in the parking garages that were to accompany the high rises.

In a decision issued in 1988, Superior Court Judge Frank Domenichini issued a permanent injunction barring development on the lot without the Angels’ advance approval. The judge also ruled that the Angels have an absolute right to the 12,000 ground-level parking spaces into the 21st Century.

Tuesday’s ruling affirmed Domenichini’s decision with a few modifications.

*

In an opinion written by Justice Edward J. Wallin, the court stated that the city could develop the Orangewood Avenue portion of the plan without infringing on the Angels’ rights to its minimum 12,000 ground-level parking spaces.

Alfred E. Augustini, the attorney for the Rams development group, said the court’s ruling is “a total and utter defeat” for the Angels.

“My clients are walking several feet above the ground right now,” Augustini said. “It’s been a long hard slog, but now we’re ready to enjoy the fruits of our agreement with the city and develop Orangewood.”

He said the Rams development group--called Anaheim Stadium Associates--had always been willing to eliminate the State College development proposal if the Angels agreed to permit the construction near Orangewood.

“That’s been offered in our settlement negotiations since the very beginning of this lawsuit,” he said.

Anaheim Stadium Associates is owned by Rams owner Georgia Frontiere, children of her late husband Carroll Rosenbloom, and developer Trammell Crow.

“My clients are glad it’s over and the court of appeals put the final nail through this lawsuit,” he said.

Currently, he said, Anaheim Stadium Associates plans to proceed with the project, but the partnership was negotiating with city officials, who have offered to buy the group’s development rights.

Richard M. Brown, the Angels president, said the Orangewood development “may not be a problem” in the team’s lease negotiations if development of the lot “is compatible with a new, long-term arrangement, which the Angels and city are now discussing.”

“The Angels would not like to leave their home in Anaheim,” Brown said, “but since the lease was entered into 30 years ago in 1964, many changes have occurred which require a new agreement.

The possibility of an Angels departure is troubling to city officials who are reeling from the actions taken by the Rams organization to possibly relocate to another city.

Angels’ attorneys said Tuesday that no decision has been made on whether or not to appeal the court’s ruling to the California Supreme Court.

Ruth, the city manager, said the city wants to “to put this litigation behind us and continue to negotiate a long-term agreement that will keep the Angels in Anaheim well beyond the year 2001, when their existing contract ends.”