NFL: LEAGUE GETS STEAL IN LAND DEAL ANAHEIM PROPERTY IS WORTH MORE THAN $50 MILLION.

Byline: Billy Witz Staff Writer

ORLANDO, Fla. - After spending more than a year negotiating a stadium development in Carson, Steve Hopkins knows the NFL. As a shopping mall builder based in Newport Beach, Hopkins also knows Orange County real estate.

So, after a few rapid rat-tat-tat taps on a calculator punching in the particulars of Anaheim's conditional sale of 50 acres to the NFL for less than $50 million, it didn't take Hopkins long to reach a conclusion.

``If somebody said to me, `Would you be interested?' we'd be all over it like a cheap suit,'' Hopkins said. ``To put it another way, if there were a different kind of development there, if we were going to do retail, mixed use and office, the price would be a hell of a lot different than that.''

While others in the real-estate industry agreed that the city fell short of the market price for the land, Anaheim officials said Wednesday that the numbers were misleading after the potential land-purchase agreement for a stadium was reported in the Daily News.

Mayor Curt Pringle said the price should be calculated differently since nearly one-third of the parcel has limits on its uses because of parking obligations for the Angels, an office building and a nearby train depot.

``The property available for development is right at 35 acres,'' Pringle said. ``The city did an appraisal at the end of last summer that came back at right around $1.5 million per acre, so that would put the number right at $53 million for developable property.''

However, that doesn't take into consideration the value of the 15 acres with restrictions. Also, there seems to be disparities in the assessments of the property, which was done last summer - several months before an agreement on the price was reached - and commercial values have increased since then.

Pringle said if the appraised value rises before a sale is complete, the city would recoup a portion of the increase.

However, several commercial real estate brokers gave estimates of anywhere between $1.7 million and $2.5 million per acre under its current commercial zoning. If it's zoned for high-density residential, which would require approval from the Angels, those numbers could triple.

The NFL placed an even higher value on the land, telling the league's owners that it was appraised at $3 million per acre and that it would cost $1 million per acre, according to one owner.

``I liken it to the same deal Arte Moreno has,'' said Paul Kott, who owns a real estate brokerage in Anaheim. ``It's a bargain basement deal.''

In the Angels' deal, in exchange for paying the city less money in rent, the team's former owner Disney agreed to change the name to Anaheim. But Moreno recently won a lawsuit to include Los Angeles in the name.

Similar offsets in the NFL deal, according to sources familiar with the negotiations, are that the team would have Anaheim in the name and that the city would be awarded multiple Super Bowls.

``You can talk about Super Bowls, parking revenue, and how many other things they can do with the stadium, but those are all side benefits,'' said Councilman Harry Sidhu, an opponent of the deal. ``The most valuable asset the city has is the land. The NFL is going to steal the land that is worth a lot more than under $50 million.''

While the city has said it will open the property up to other bidders if the NFL doesn't make a decision by the end of May, Sidhu has been pushing to do that anyway, something Pringle has called naive.

Billy Witz, [phone]

billy.witz(at)dailynews.com