In his first news conference since October 2015, Angels owner Arte Moreno said Saturday that his team is staying at Angel Stadium for the foreseeable future.
The franchise holds the right to opt out of its Angel Stadium lease in 2019 and has long been considering a move within Orange County around that. But no suitable location has been found, so they will stay.
Moreno said the club holds additional opt-out opportunities in 2028 and 2038, although, as written, the lease expires at the end of 2029 and then contains three three-year opt-in clauses, extending through 2038.
Opened in 1966, Angel Stadium is the fourth-oldest stadium in Major League Baseball. Fifteen of the league’s 30 teams will play this season in stadiums opened in 2000 or later.
Speaking at Tempe Diablo Stadium ahead of his club’s first scheduled full-squad workout of 2017, Moreno said he believed any move would require at least three years of advance planning because of environmental restrictions in California.
“It’s going to take some time to get ourselves prepared to see what direction we’re going to go,” Moreno said. “We have options with the lease, whether we exercise them or not. We really have options all the way through ’38. We have flexibility.”
The Times reported in August that the developer of one proposed site in Tustin said his firm could not structure a deal that made economic sense for the development company, for Tustin and for the Angels.
Moreno said the franchise spent $1.5 million to install LED lights in the stadium over the off-season. They were first deployed during supercross events last month.
“If we were leaving, we wouldn’t be spending any capital on lights,” he said.
pedro.moura@latimes.com
Twitter: @pedromoura
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