The Kroenke Warner Center complex in the
Woodland Hills neighborhood of
Los Angeles
Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
, California, United States is a mixed-use complex consisting of an open-air shopping center with a proposed expansion to include restaurants, hotels and residences, along with a training facility for the
Los Angeles Rams
The Los Angeles Rams are a professional American football team based in the Greater Los Angeles, Greater Los Angeles area. The Rams compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC West, West ...
of the
National Football League
The National Football League (NFL) is a Professional gridiron football, professional American football league in the United States. Composed of 32 teams, it is divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National ...
(NFL). The was assembled from a
vacant shopping mall, an abandoned corporate office building, and Topanga Village, an open-air lifestyle and retail destination (which continues to operate).
Context
Warner Center is a master-planned neighborhood and business district development in the
San Fernando Valley
The San Fernando Valley, known locally as the Valley, is an urbanized valley in Los Angeles County, Los Angeles County, California. Situated to the north of the Los Angeles Basin, it comprises a large portion of Los Angeles, the Municipal corpo ...
which includes the Warner Center Towers office complex, the
Westfield Topanga mall, and Warner Center Marriott Woodland Hills. The neighborhood Specific Plan adopted in 2013 promotes the construction of housing, shops and restaurants which would make
Warner Center a more bustling urban environment where people live, work, shop and find entertainment. Thousands of apartments have been gradually added since the adoption of the specific plan. Large-scale mixed-use developments are already in the works such as a proposed $1-billion complex on Warner Center Lane with offices, stores, restaurants, residences and a hotel that would include parks and pedestrian-oriented open space.
The Promenade was a that opened in 1973 as part of the Kaiser Aetna master-planned commercial-retail-residential development plan for their section of the massive former Warner Ranch. In September 2015, Westfield opened a major expansion of Westfield Topanga, called The Village, an open-air shopping destination next to the largely-inactive Promenade mall. In December 2017, Westfield was acquired by French commercial real estate company
Unibail-Rodamco
Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield SE (previously Unibail-Rodamco SE) is a European Multinational corporation, multinational Commercial property, commercial real estate company headquartered in Paris, France, and is the owner and operator of List of West ...
, which would later be renamed
Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield
Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield SE (previously Unibail-Rodamco SE) is a European multinational commercial real estate company headquartered in Paris, France, and is the owner and operator of Westfield shopping centres in the northern hemisphere. It ...
(URW). In December 2020, a new development called "Promenade 2035" to replace the
dead mall with a sports arena, two hotels, a 28-story office tower and more than 1,400 new apartments was approved by the
Los Angeles City Council
The Los Angeles City Council is the Legislature, lawmaking body for the Government of Los Angeles, city government of Los Angeles, California, the second largest city in the United States. It has 15 members who each represent the 15 city council ...
with the Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield plan being called a "mini-city ... within this larger city".
History
News reports surfaced in 2021 that sports owner and real estate developer
Stan Kroenke was in discussions with URW about acquiring one of its properties when it was reported that URW would sell its commercial properties in the United States. In March 2022, the , The Promenade, was sold to Kroenke for approximately $150 million. A month later, Kroenke bought an adjacent vacant 13-story office building, officially named the Landmark building, on of parking lots and landscaping for $175 million, formerly occupied by health insurer
Anthem Inc. The Westfield shopping center called Topanga Village (The Village at Westfield Topanga) was purchased in January 2023 for $325-million bringing the total property ownership to . This was the second largest sale of a shopping center in 2022.
The Village has continued to operate as an open-air lifestyle and retail destination since then.
In mid-2023, nearby residents were sent a letter explaining that the project would be a year-round practice facility and headquarters for the
Los Angeles Rams
The Los Angeles Rams are a professional American football team based in the Greater Los Angeles, Greater Los Angeles area. The Rams compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC West, West ...
. The Rams looked to establish a permanent practice and training facility in the western
San Fernando Valley
The San Fernando Valley, known locally as the Valley, is an urbanized valley in Los Angeles County, Los Angeles County, California. Situated to the north of the Los Angeles Basin, it comprises a large portion of Los Angeles, the Municipal corpo ...
. Beginning in 2016 until 2024, they used a temporary facility set up on
California Lutheran University
California Lutheran University (CLU, Cal Lutheran, or Cal Lu) is a private university in Thousand Oaks, California, United States. It was founded in 1959 and is affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, but is nonsectarian. It o ...
’s campus in
Thousand Oaks. The Cal Lutheran site was nearly from
SoFi Stadium
SoFi Stadium ( ) is a domed multi-purpose stadium in Inglewood, California, U.S., a suburb of Los Angeles. SoFi occupies the former site of the Hollywood Park Racetrack and neighbors the Kia Forum and Intuit Dome.
Opened in September 2020, the ...
while Warner Center is about from the major sports complex in
Inglewood. Construction of temporary practice fields at the northeast corner of the former office building parking lot began in November 2023 to be ready for the
2024 NFL season. The facility is not intended for their annual training camp, and Warner Center practice fields are not open to the public. Following the end of the 2024 preseason, the Rams began conducting regular practices at their new permanent facility.
With the development plan previously approved for replacing the mall portion of the property, the company is widely expected to seek approval of similar commercial development unrelated to football along with the team headquarters, practice facility and field on the , modeled on type of development of the much larger SoFi sports campus in Inglewood. While some have assumed that the former Anthem building will be torn down, the Kroenke organization could develop the land faster if the building was left intact and used as offices. City officials are encouraging dense mixed-use development for Warner Center so the area can achieve its original purpose of a downtown for the
San Fernando Valley
The San Fernando Valley, known locally as the Valley, is an urbanized valley in Los Angeles County, Los Angeles County, California. Situated to the north of the Los Angeles Basin, it comprises a large portion of Los Angeles, the Municipal corpo ...
.
References
{{Los Angeles Rams
Kroenke Sports & Entertainment
Shopping malls in the San Fernando Valley
Woodland Hills, Los Angeles
2015 establishments in California
Shopping malls established in 2015
Shopping malls in Los Angeles
Los Angeles Rams