Since March 2022, Los Angeles Rams owners Stan Kroenke has shelled out approximately $650 million to scoop up nearly 100 acres of Warner Center real estate - including the struggling Promenade Mall and a property once occupied by Anthem Blue Cross. The billionaire developer has been expected to use that investment to make Warner Center the team's permanent base of operations, and it seems he is finally looking to put that plan into motion.
This week, social media posts began circulating which indicated that a letter had been sent to Woodland Hills residents announcing the pending arrival of the new Rams practice facility. A rendering accompanying the letter, sent by L.A. City Councilmember Bob Blumenfield, indicates that the new facility would rise on the former Anthem Blue Cross site, located at 21555 Oxnard Street. The image shows two practice fields and a cluster of new temporary, modular buildings, which would rise from land that now serves as surface parking at the intersection of Canoga Avenue and Erwin Street.
The relatively modest scope of the planned temporary facility belies greater ambitions for Kroenke in the Warner Center area. When he purchased the Promenade Mall from Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield (URW) for $150 million, the roughly 35-acre property came with generous entitlements for a 3.2-million-square-foot mixed-use project featuring more than 1,400 homes, hotels, offices, and a 10,000-seat indoor entertainment venue. That land, coupled with the neighboring property at 21555 Oxnard Street and the adjoining Village mall (which Kroenke also owns), could set the stage for a more modest version of the sprawling mixed-use development taking shape around SoFi Stadium in Inglewood.
No entitlements have been processed for the land where the new temporary facility is planned, although prior ownership had pursued the potential adaptive reuse of the existing office building, as well as the potential construction of a high-rise apartment building next door.
Warner Center, originally planned as a Century City-like employment hub in the 1970s, has gradually added thousands of apartments since the adoption of a new specific plan for the neighborhood in 2013. Plans to redevelop the Promenade site have been followed by similar proposals for other superblock properties in the neighborhood such as the 24-acre Warner Corporate Center, which has also received entitlements for a mixed-use project featuring homes, offices, hotels, and other commercial uses.
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