Sportstown Anaheim

Sportstown Anaheim would transform 159 acres surrounding Anaheim Stadium into a complex with five districts. A closer look at the plans: [1] Gateway District: Towers would mark two major entrances, and a 250-room hotel would overlook a football stadium. Entertainment would include formal dining, food courts, night clubs, a produce market, coffeehouses and retailers. [2] Little a: Fields for community and sports activities. Also would be used for training camps and league and championship games.

Developers of that proposed indoor snowboarding, bodyboarding and skate park in Anaheim swear their oft-delayed Gotcha Glacier is now on track. Construction financing "is imminent," said Linda Grant Williams, a lawyer working for the Glacier of Anaheim LLC development team.

Plans for a youth sports center and one of two hotels have been scrapped in a scaled-down version of Sportstown Anaheim, the entertainment and retail complex proposed for property around Anaheim Stadium, which will also have 70% less office space than originally envisioned, city officials said Tuesday. The revised proposal comes as the city's Planning Commission considers approving an environmental impact report, required by state law for major projects.

A company hoping to build a 173-foot-high indoor snowboarding park on the Edison International Field parking lot has raised the project's price tag to $130 million--3 1/2 times the original amount. Glacier of Anaheim LLC put Gotcha Glacier's cost at $40 million when plans were disclosed more than two years ago by apparel entrepreneur Marvin Winkler, a partner in the deal. Later cost estimates rose to $50 million, $65 million, $75 million and $105 million.

The City Council approved a master plan for a sports-and-entertainment area surrounding Edison Field, a move designed to give landowners incentives to develop their properties. Councilman Tom Tait said the plan streamlines the development process: "Essentially what it does, is it cuts a lot of city red tape."

No one ever faulted Anaheim for lacking ambition. At times the city's reach has exceeded its grasp, but it has had enough major successes with Disneyland, Anaheim Stadium, The Pond and the Convention Center to outweigh setbacks to some projects and the loss of a professional football team. Last week the city took the wraps off Sportstown Anaheim, a far-reaching plan for a hotel, restaurants, stores, office space and possibly a new football stadium, on 159 acres surrounding Anaheim Stadium.

Plans for a sports-related entertainment and retail complex next to Anaheim Stadium could move forward today when the City Council considers a proposal by Forest City Development California Inc. to market Sportstown Anaheim and oversee its development. Planning officials are recommending that the Los Angeles-based subsidiary of Forest City Enterprises of Cleveland be awarded exclusive negotiating rights.

City officials appear willing to scale back their vision for a sports, entertainment and retail complex around Anaheim Stadium in the hope of reaching agreement with the Walt Disney Co. over stadium renovations and a new lease for the Angels. City Manager James D. Ruth on Monday declined to elaborate, but acknowledged that any deal would involve a smaller version of the complex called Sportstown Anaheim.

City officials Wednesday announced ambitious plans for Sportstown Anaheim, a 159-acre sports, entertainment, retail and office complex that would surround Anaheim Stadium and help bolster the region's economy. The complex would be divided into five sections, one of which would be anchored by a new football stadium. City Manager James D. Ruth said the city will know "within 90 days" whether they have landed a National Football League franchise to replace the Rams, which departed to St.

At the request of two of the city's school districts, the City Council has agreed to review the environmental study for Sportstown Anaheim, a huge entertainment, retail and sports complex planned for the Anaheim Stadium area. The study, required by state law for major projects, was approved last month by the Planning Commission. Anaheim City Atty. Jack L. White said Tuesday that the study is "adequate in its current form."

Advisors to the $105-million Gotcha Glacier project said Thursday that the proposed indoor snowboarding and wave-pool park is close to signing two major tenants, a big step toward getting the much-delayed Anaheim sports center underway.

A planned music-themed entertainment complex that was supposed to help transform Garden Grove into a tourist magnet has been shelved because the developer could not line up tenants or funding for the $400-million project, the city said Tuesday. The apparent demise of Music City Riverwalk might signal that parts of the county are "over-retailed," said Matthew Fertal, Garden Grove's community development director.

Anaheim's City Council granted unanimous approval Tuesday for the overall design of the Gotcha Glacier indoor extreme sports park, paving the way for the one-of-a-kind, $105-million project. The only chill in a warm reception for the project was over how its name will be displayed. Backers want the words "Gotcha Glacier" in giant red letters on the roof, but the Planning Commission had recommended that the letters be below the roof line.

From the outside, putting a piece of the national pastime in the hands of two of America's new high-tech billionaires looks like a home run. Broadcom Corp. co-founders Henry T. Nicholas III and Henry Samueli, who lead a group thinking of buying the Anaheim Angels, could pump money, technology and a little pizazz into a sad-sack team that has never made it to the World Series. But behind the headlines of Walt Disney Co.'

The Redevelopment Agency on Tuesday unanimously approved an "owner participation agreement" between the city and the developers of Sportstown. Under the agreement, the city will reimburse developer Glacier of Anaheim LLC for 50% of the infrastructure costs for the entire Sportstown site. Sportstown is the $300-million sports and entertainment complex under development on a 42-acre site next to Edison International Field.

Mike Gerard lives in San Clemente, where you can spit into the Pacific, so his dream seems a little incongruous. "Wouldn't it be neat to have an Olympic snowboarding champion come out of a city somewhere, a kid who had never been on a mountain, to become one of the world's best snowboarders? That would be a dream come true," Gerard says. Huh? If that is your first reaction, Gerard will set you straight.

Despite the objections of two school districts, an environmental study for the Sportstown Anaheim project was approved unanimously without debate Tuesday by the City Council. The decision clears the way for city officials to aggressively seek private investors to develop Sportstown--a huge entertainment, retail and sports complex planned for 159 acres at Anaheim Stadium. The environmental impact report, required under state law, was approved in May by the Planning Commission.