The Super Bowl champion Los Angeles Rams are in negotiations to purchase the site of the Westfield Promenade shopping mall in Woodland Hills for its team practice facility, according to a Los Angeles Times report.
The football team and mall owner Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield are in talks regarding the nearly empty mall site, according to the report. The Rams could pay more than $150 million for the property, which would be large enough to maintain a summer training camp with fans in attendance.
Since 2016, the Rams have been practicing at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks and have staged training camps at UC Irvine. The team’s business offices are located in Agoura Hills.
The Rams will continue to practice at Cal Lutheran at least for the next season.
“From the time this relationship was forged, both parties knew that Cal Lutheran would serve as the Rams’ temporary training site,” Karin Grennan, the media relations manager for Cal Lutheran, said Friday. “We are pleased that they have been here since 2016, and just this week the Rams exercised their option to stay another full year for the 2022-2023 season.
“Once the organization vacates the space, we will use the high-quality practice fields, parking lot and infrastructure they constructed for our future athletic facilities,” she continued. “This has always been the plan, and it remains so today.”
If the deal materializes, the former Promenade property in Warner Center could accommodate a practice facility, training camp and team headquarters at one site with enough land for a surrounding mixed-use development in the same vein as SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, where the Rams play and was the site of its Feb. 13 Super Bowl triumph over the Cincinnati Bengals.
“That sounds like a really great opportunity and would be good news if true,” Councilmember Bob Blumenfield, who represents Woodland Hills, said on Friday. “There is a plan in place for a venue at the site that protects the community and could let our Super Bowl champs get something up and running in my district pretty soon, which is incredibly exciting.”
Until recently, the 34 acres between Topanga Canyon Boulevard and Oxnard Street had been earmarked for a $1.5 billion overhaul of the nearly vacant Westfield Promenade mall. The Promenade 2035 project, which received approval in 2020, would have brought in 1,400 apartment units, retail, 572-key hotel, a 25-story, 731,500-square-foot office building and a 10,000- to 15,000-seat sports arena.
It would appear that this plan would be scrapped if the property were sold to the Rams. Â
However, the sale of the property to the Rams would be in line with a statement last year by Jean-Marie Tritant, CEO of the Paris-based Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, who said that his company would not be pursuing any more assets in the United States.
Blumenfield seemed excited about the prospects of the football team calling Warner Center home.
“I’ll never forget how a few years ago the Rams jumped in to help Cleveland High School’s football team after the money they raised for the upcoming season was stolen,” Blumenfield said. “They swiftly delivered brand new gear to the players who had worked so hard. The Rams have continued to be incredible partners helping the Valley and our city.”
