Baseball Team Agrees to Move to Lancaster

After years of flirtation with baseball, Lancaster officials Monday announced a tentative deal to move the Riverside Pilots minor league team to the Antelope Valley at a cost to the city of more than $7 million.

If the agreement is approved by the Lancaster City Council, the first pitch--in a 4,500-seat stadium built by the city as part of the deal--will be thrown next April.

The council is expected to take a major step toward ratification at a special meeting this morning by approving a 10-year lease of the proposed stadium with the owners of the Class-A team.

If the move proceeds, the yet-to-be-renamed Lancaster club, affiliated with Major League Baseball’s Seattle Mariners, would be the only minor league team of its kind in the Los Angeles-Orange-Ventura counties area. Long Beach has a minor league team that is unaffiliated with a major league franchise.

“I’m very glad the city of Lancaster waited for the right pitch,” said Lancaster Mayor George Runner, alluding to the series of baseball proposals the city has turned down over the years. City officials called the Pilots deal a great recreational and economic development opportunity.

But some elected officials objected that they weren’t advised of the deal and pointed to a complicated funding scheme that would allow the city to use tax-exempt financing to build the stadium.

“It’s not the stadium and baseball I’m upset with. It’s the process,” complained Councilwoman Deborah Shelton. “I thought the financial arrangements were very convoluted and complex. And I thought we ought to spend some time building some consensus in the community.”

She and Councilman Michael Singer complained that public review and consideration of the proposal are being short-circuited by the rush to approval, including today’s council meeting called with little advance notice. Added Singer: “We’re going out on the limb for a large sum of money at a time when the economy is just not stable.”

However, City Manager Jim Gilley and other Lancaster officials said there is no need for concern. Not only are the team’s owners, who operate under the name Clutch Play Baseball, financially secure, with investments in other teams, but the city could lease the stadium to another club if the Pilots departed, officials said.

Because the three other council members have expressed support for the deal, the objections of Shelton and Singer are not likely to hold up ratification of the lease.

Under the proposal, worth a total of $10 million, the Lancaster Redevelopment Agency would build a $6.2-million stadium on an 18.4-acre, agency-owned site at the southwest corner of the Antelope Valley Freeway and Avenue I, just north of the Lancaster Factory Stores outlet that opened there last November.

In addition to the stadium, the city’s Redevelopment Agency would be paying $881,000 to build stadium parking, $600,000 for local street construction and various other design costs and fees. The agency would also be donating land worth an estimated $2.4 million.

Gilley said the city plans to finance the stadium and certain other costs by issuing bonds or other financial notes worth $7 million to $8 million. The agency plans to make interest-only payments of about $485,000 annually for the first five years, then pay off the principal or refinance the debt.

The club’s contribution to the deal would amount to $3 million, consisting of 10 annual lease payments of $300,000. Under the lease, the team would keep all baseball ticket and concession revenues. City officials would get full-time use of two luxury boxes at the stadium and up to 300 free baseball tickets per season.

Pilots’ officials said they were looking to leave Riverside because that city had not built the new stadium the team had sought. Team officials had also been stymied in their efforts to gain permission to sell alcoholic beverages at their games, a substantial source of revenue.

Lancaster city officials Monday said they had no qualms about allowing the team’s concessionaire to sell beer and other alcohol at the stadium, even though council members in 1991, decrying the use of alcohol, banned it at the city’s performing arts center for a year before relenting.

Also, city officials said they are committed to having the new Lancaster stadium built in time for the start of the season next spring. The stadium would be rented out for other functions in the off-season.

“We wanted a community that wants us,” said the team’s president, Mike Ellis, at a joint news conference with city officials in Lancaster on Monday. “The demographics here are wonderful.”

Although Lancaster and team officials hope to attract patrons from the San Fernando Valley and other areas, Pilots Vice President Matt Ellis--Mike’s son--said of the Antelope Valley: “There are enough people there already that you don’t have to drag people anywhere.”

The team is part of the 10-club California League, considered one of the strongest of the seven Class-A baseball leagues in the country. Class-A is the third-highest of the four levels of organized minor league baseball, serving as a proving ground for younger players hoping to reach the majors.

Other teams in the California League are located in Bakersfield, Adelanto, Lake Elsinore, Modesto, Rancho Cucamonga, San Bernardino, San Jose, Stockton and Visalia. Ticket prices for minor league games typically range from $2 to $6.

Ironically, the Pilots’ plan to relocate to Lancaster comes on the heels of the demise of the Antelope Valley Ravens, based just inside Kern County in the town of Rosamond, and the independent Golden State Baseball League to which they belonged.

Times staff writer Phil Sneiderman contributed to this story.