Disney Awaits New Anaheim Stadium Offer

Following the Walt Disney Co.’s rejection of the city’s cost-sharing formula for $100 million worth of planned renovations to Anaheim Stadium, the City Council met in emergency session for two hours Monday to carve out a new proposal.

Although the council was divided on what the city should be willing to concede to Disney in the high-stakes negotiations--which also involve an extended lease for the California Angels baseball team--a majority nonetheless agreed on a new offer to be presented to Disney late Monday or today.

“Everyone has their opinion, but the bottom line is: We’re moving forward,” Anaheim Councilman Lou Lopez said. “I feel very confident that we’ll be able to resolve this.”

Councilman Frank Feldhaus echoed that sentiment and said negotiations are “going toward the direction of resolution.”

Monday’s cautious optimism was in sharp contrast to the gloom that existed Friday, when Disney reportedly rejected the first counteroffer crafted by the council, dashing hopes for an early resolution.

Disney has offered to pay $70 million of the $100-million price tag for renovations, which would transform the Big A from a multisport facility back into a smaller, more intimate baseball park with about 20,000 fewer seats. That would have left the city with $30 million of the cost.

With the city operating under a bare-bones budget for the last several years, council members are reluctant to be seen as subsidizing the entertainment giant.

“We’re trying to find what is best for Anaheim and its residents,” Lopez said. “Somewhere down the line, hopefully, we’ll come to a compromise. It’s just a matter of working it out.”

Disney Sports Enterprises spokesman Bill Robertson said “they’re still talking” and declined further comment.

Neither Disney nor the city would comment Monday on the details of the offers and counteroffers being made. But it appears likely that if a deal is struck, Disney would take over all stadium operations, much in the way that the Pond, also city-owned, is run by a private contractor.

Sources said the most troublesome issue is revenue from things such as parking, concessions and stadium naming rights.

Under the current lease, the Angels and the city split parking revenue 50-50, and the Angels receive 60% of concession revenue. The city chargesthe Angels rent, which totals 7.5% of gate receipts for the first 2 million fans, and 10% of gate revenue above that mark.

City officials have said that they want to be assured that any money the city spends on renovations would be repaid by these revenue. Sources said the city has at least $10 million it can spend on the renovations, but it is not clear where the balance would come from.

Surtaxes on tickets or parking have been proposed in the negotiations, sources said. But Disney is unlikely to agree to such an idea, since company officials have said in the past that they are philosophically opposed to such taxes.

Some council members emerged from a three-hour meeting Thursday, angry over the proposal that was submitted to Disney the following day. On Monday, some of that discontent remained.

“We definitely have a divided council,” Councilman Bob Zemel said after Monday’s meeting. “There are some conceptual and philosophical differences, and there is some disagreement over actual deal points. But the city is working in the direction of making this work.”

If Disney warms to the city’s latest offer, final details of the proposal could be discussed in closed session when the council has its regular meeting today.

The negotiations have escalated in the last week, with the council having two special meetings to discuss the matter. The talks have taken on an added urgency because of a deadline that Disney imposed when details of its offer to buy controlling interest in the Angels was made public.

On Jan. 18, the day that Major League Baseball approved Disney’s proposal to purchase 25% and operating control of the California Angels, the company set a 60-day deadline to settle the issue of stadium renovations with the city.

If the deadline is not met, Disney can walk away from the deal, leaving majority owners Gene and Jackie Autry searching for another buyer.