Dodgers take step to shift training to Arizona

After six decades in baseball’s most storied spring home, the Dodgers appear to be headed to the Cactus League.

The Dodgers and Chicago White Sox have agreed to share a stadium and training complex in the Phoenix suburb of Glendale, with the grand opening targeted for 2009.

Tom Lasorda will represent the Dodgers at the official announcement today in Glendale, home of the NFL’s Arizona Cardinals and NHL’s Phoenix Coyotes.

“We’d like to be closer to our West Coast fan base,” Dodgers spokeswoman Camille Johnston said.

In so doing, the team would abandon Dodgertown in Vero Beach, Fla., their spring home since 1948.

“It’s a sad day,” said former Dodgers owner Peter O’Malley.

The Glendale project -- funded by the city, the state of Arizona and a private developer -- would blend a 120-acre training site within 400 to 500 acres that would include shops, restaurants and a hotel, city spokeswoman Julie Frisoni said.

Yet, the project faces several hurdles. Glendale has not yet obtained state funding and must compete with the nearby city of Goodyear, with the likelihood money will be available for one spring training complex but not both.

The Cleveland Indians have agreed to move to Goodyear if that city gets funding by Dec. 31.

The White Sox are contractually bound to Tucson through 2013 unless they secure a replacement team with “equivalent economic impact and similar drawing power,” Pima County administrator Chuck Huckleberry said.

“This is a first step,” Johnston said. “This is not a done deal.”

Vero Beach City Manager James Gabbard said he met with Dodgers attorney Sam Fernandez on Tuesday, discussing contractual issues that would surround the team’s departure. The Dodgers can opt out of their lease there by paying about $15 million or by buying Dodgertown at fair market value, Indian River County administrator Joe Baird said.

Baird said he was concerned the team might buy Dodgertown and sell it to a developer, who might raze the complex rather than allow the city and county to seek a team to replace the Dodgers. Johnston said the Dodgers would work toward a “mutually beneficial” resolution.

The Dodgers’ ties with Brooklyn are long gone, and they are no longer a marquee team in Florida. They averaged 4,835 spectators last spring, worse than the Pittsburgh Pirates and Cincinnati Reds. In Arizona, the Dodgers expect that average crowd to more than double, making a move a matter of economics as well as convenience.

“I love Vero Beach,” Lasorda said. “But we’ll have a lot more people coming over from L.A.”

bill.shaikin@latimes.com