Dodgers name executive to oversee $500-million stadium upgrade

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Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt today said he has moved his real estate company, John McCourt Co., from Boston to Los Angeles and hired veteran real estate executive Geoffrey Wharton as president. McCourt Co.’s holdings include nearly 300 acres in Chavez Ravine, where the Dodgers play baseball. Wharton’s first task will be to complete the city entitlement process for McCourt’s planned $500-million makeover of Dodger Stadium that McCourt hopes will transform the ballpark by 2012 into a year-round destination for dining, shopping and recreation. The project, announced last year, would include parking structures, a Dodgers history museum and a landscaped plaza behind centerfield connecting to shops and restaurants.

Work on the project, called the Next 50, could begin at the end of this season.

Wharton came to John McCourt Co. from Apollo Real Estate Group, according to a news release, ‘where he oversaw the master planning and entitlements for Sunset La Cienega in West Hollywood and the Columbia Square project in Hollywood. He also was a consultant to the Georgetown Group on the master plan for the Sony complex in Culver City. Prior to Apollo, he led Silverstein Properties’ role in developing a master plan for the World Trade Center site and the development program for 7 World Trade Center in New York.’

The company was founded in 1893 by John McCourt, Frank McCourt’s great-grandfather. It recently acquired an office building on College Street in Los Angeles for its headquarters.

-- Roger Vincent