The purchase has been approved at $1.2 million, with an additional $25,000 allocated for title search and other fees associated with the property transfer. White Light Chiropractic will be allowed to stay in this location according to the terms of a new short-term lease agreement with the City of Santa Clarita until their new location is ready for move-in, as will the other business owners in the area.

This is the third Spruce Street building to be purchased by the City of Santa Clarita this year. The CarQuest building was purchased for $1.715 million and the building that houses Paws for Fun Doggie Daycare was purchased for $725,000.

Still holding on are the buildings that house Just Passing Thru Body Piercing and the old Antique Flower Garden building.

Although the stated plan for these properties is to build a new public library combined with some level of retail and office space, the City Council has left the doors wide open for any type of private development in the area with the following wording on their request for funds for this acquisition:

"the payment of funds for the Project will assist in the elimination of blighting conditions inside the Redevelopment Project Area by providing for adequate parcels and required public improvements to induce new construction and/or rehabilitation by private enterprise; promoting the comprehensive planning, redesign, replanning, reconstruction and/or rehabilitation in such a manner as to achieve a higher and better utilization of the land within the project area, and assisting in attracting new businesses and residential developments to the area."

Will the City of Santa Clarita actually build a new library in Downtown (Old Town) Newhall, or will this land just be sold of to private developers for another glorified strip mall? Hard to say, but so far they have not presented any public studies to show that there is a need for a new library in that location, given that there already are libraries in Newhall and Valencia, and other areas in Santa Clarita are completely without libraries. The Downtown Newhall area does not have a large residential population, and that will be reduced as redevelopment plans continue.

The financial plans for the Old Town Newhall Revitalization Project, or the Retail Opportunities Analysis, had to assume shoppers would travel from as far away as Castaic and the San Fernando Valley in order to accumulate enough potential revenues to justify proceeding with the project. In fact, these outlying areas account for 50% of the total revenues for the Revitalization Project according to the study, completely disregarding the fact that the Valencia Town Center Mall is being expanded and The Avenue at Santa Clarita is on the horizon as well.

So, it would seem that any land acquired for the Old Town Newhall area would need to be converted into higher income generating properties such as retail centers rather than for a public use project such as a new public library in order to justify the overall redevelopment project. Only time will tell what the Santa Clarita City Council will ultimately build in Old Town Newhall.

If so, this is likely a result of all the uproar over the closing of the landmark Newhall Hardware store and the impact the City’s redevelopment efforts have had on all of the businesses in the Downtown Newhall area affected by the recent parking and traffic flow changes. Not to mention those along Spruce Street, which will be displaced shortly if the City’s plans for that area continue.

It’s been interesting to read the public outrage about the closing of Newhall Hardware, and how Santa Clarita residents are becoming very outspoken against a redevelopment plan that basically demolishes a lot of the area’s history. Until the Newhall Hardware issue came up, the local residents didn’t seem to care much about what went on in Old Town Newhall.

It’s sad to think that Newhall Hardware had to close its doors in order for Santa Clarita residents to open their eyes to see what’s really going on in Old Town Newhall. Hopefully the positive side to this will be that the remaining Downtown Newhall businesses will be spared from similar fates.

If this rumor is true, then I have to say that I’m proud of the Santa Clarita residents who took the time to write Letters to the Editor and other articles to make their opinions heard on this important issue. That’s the beauty of having local government instead of County government – we can definitely make a difference in our community. The City didn’t seem to listen when it was just the business owners complaining, but once the outrage became community-wide, there was no way City staffers could ignore the tidal wave that was created.

If you have additional information regarding this issue, please feel free to comment below!

The issue of Downtown (or Old Town) Newhall Redevelopment has finally come to the forefront with the closing of Newhall Hardware, and hopefully by now people are realizing that this isn’t the only business headed for disaster under the current redevelopment plans.

It seems rather curious that the redevelopment plans have sat idle for the last several years, and now that the eminent domain provisions are up for renewal shortly (as in next year) we’re seeing ramped up action on this plan.

Per redevelopment agency documents: The Agency has had eminent domain authority as an option to address projects in the Project Area since 1997. Under the Law, the time limit on eminent domain lasts for 12 years, unless extended by amendment. The time limit will expire on July 8, 2009.

Is this because the currently-elected Council members fear that a new City Council team would nix their prior plans when the eminent domain provisions come up for renewal next year? Or is it just because we’re finding ourselves in a crappy economy and an equally crappy real estate market, so they figured it’s time to mess things up even more? Or is it just plain bad timing, without regards to any other factors?

When you vote this year, be sure to take a look at what each candidate represents for you, and don’t fall into the trap of just voting for a familiar name or face. If the current City Council rocks your boat, then re-elect them. If not, then vote for someone else.

In regards to Old Town Newhall’s redevelopment process, we’ve seen some unpopular decisions from the Santa Clarita City Council this year. Back-in parking that was then reversed to the standard front-in parking after much public outcry. The rerouting of San Fernando Road traffic onto Railroad Avenue, significantly reducing traffic flow to businesses along the San Fernando Road corridor. And to make things even worse, those God-awful stop signs every few feet that seem to serve no purpose other than making sure you have a bird’s-eye view of the now-failing businesses and peeling paint on those buildings.

This is the time for us to make changes in our government, whether local, state or national. Be sure to get out and VOTE, and be sure to research the candidates before voting for them. And remember that the City Council elections will be held on April 8, 2008.

For those of you thinking about just voting for a familiar face: If you don’t know what they represent, and you don’t know who is best suited to replace them, then don’t vote for that seat at all this year. Be an informed voter!

The Signal posted an editorial in Friday’s Escape section that bears reading, but won’t be seen by non-subscribers since it’s not online. I feel so strongly about this whole issue, and so in favor of The Signal’s recent rant, that I’m taking the time to type this editorial in (in its entirety) so all can read it. More than once. After all, this is our town and our history we’re talking about, and we’re allowing a bunch of weenies at City Hall to destroy it for us to satisfy their own personal agendas.

Yes, I know that many of you would like to see the stroller-pushing Latina Mommas chased away from our pristine town, but that’s just plain WRONG. And the businesses that are being shut down aren’t just those that serve the Spanish-speaking population. There’s Newhall Hardware for starters. Add in the recently closed Antique Flower Garden. And the businesses on Spruce Street that are being chased away for this supposed urbanization of downtown Newhall, including another long-standing Newhall business, the White Light Chiropractic Center. They’ve been in the same location for over 20 years, and now the City of Santa Clarita wants them to wave bye-bye to Newhall for a mere fraction of what it will cost them to relocate elsewhere.

Add to that the automotive-related business, such as Auto Service Plus and SoundStation, that the City is actively working to push out in favor of more yuppie-style sales-tax-collecting businesses. And the remaining businesses along Spruce Street and San Fernando Road that haven’t already been smothered out of existence by the City’s new parking schemes and the rerouting of traffic away from that area.

Revitalizing Downtown Newhall doesn’t have to mean chasing away existing businesses in the hopes of attracting a bunch of cookie-cutter boutique stores. Heck, the City’s own studies show that the boutiques likely won’t set up shop there anyways. Even if you do agree with the plan to set up a bunch of cookie-cutter stores in Downtown Newhall, the closing of Newhall Hardware has shown what a terrible impact the City is having with the way they’re implementing this supposed revitalization project. There’s a better way. Revitalization has been done before in other areas without killing off existing businesses.

Here’s today’s Signal editorial. Read it. Act on it. Make sure that you take the time to make a difference in our community. Write letters to the Editor, to City Hall, to City Council Members. Post articles on blogs. Write a guest article for this blog. Contact Gloria Allred. Call the TV stations. Do whatever feels right to you, unless it’s just sitting there on your butt doing nothing. We don’t have to just sit back and allow Santa Clarita City Hall to run rampant over our history, and collectively we do have the power to stop this.

Shame on All of Us. Don G is Rolling Over in His Grave.

We tend to rail and shake our fists. At times like this, some write letters. Some cry: "There ought to be a law." Others call for the formation of yet another Blue Ribbon Committee of the connected, constipated and addled to endlessly study the matter.

Newhall Hardware is closing and there is something terribly, obscenely wrong with that.

On March 3, 1947, the empty lot next to the safeway (Tres Sierras today) in Downtown Newhall was sold by Betty Moss to Don F. Guglielmino. "Don G" as some of the old-timers called him, passed away a few years ago. He was nephew to J.F. Baudino, who owned that whole block in the 1940s.

Recently discharged from the military, Don G would soon open up Newhall Hardware. That lot, by the way, was where William Mayhue’s home used to sit. When the property was bought 61 years ago, there still was the ancient olive tree in the front yard. Vic Feany started working there when he was 23 and there isn’t a better man in town. Don G sold the place to Vic several years ago.

For six decades, Newhall Hardware was more than a place where you went for a 2-cent wingnut or a $2,000 pulley. It was part of the fabric of America, unique and homespun. Newcomer yuppies grinning out of context or the grizzled old rancher coming down from the hills could be spotted wandering aisles so narrow, you could hardly run a pipe cleaner through, let alone a grown and hearty cornfed salesclerk.

Newhall Hardware sold guns and cast iron skillets, horse tack, the coolest John Deere windvanes and tool belts. But best of all, if you had some need for a nine-sided 3/14ths hex bolt, somewhere in that darn store knew where it was.

If you needed it, Newhall Hardware had it.

Better, it was that slow-paced meeting ground where you caught up on current events, politics and gossip. Once you earned your stripes, you might be lucky enough to exchange light-hearted expletives with the owner’s wife and try to bargain down the cost of a roll of duct tape.

Things change.

Not always for the better.

Earlier this week, one of the valley’s oldest businesses held a going-out-of-business sale. Women and men wept openly.

Blame?

It was a perfect storm of circumstances. The economy sucks. You can’t throw a rock and not hit a WalMart or hardware super-store marketed toward an infantile populace weaned on Disneyland, twinkling lights, TV tie-ins and beddie-bye music. Like some malignant glacier, the City of Santa Clarita began an elephantine modernization project which couldn’t have harmed the already struggling businesses any more unless the municipal staff just punched them in the stomach.

On the quarter hour.

Actually, the previous scenario is silly and contrived. Once the staff managed to drive down there, where would they park?

Then, there were the dreaded signs.

Stop signs.

One seemingly every 16 annoying inches along the newly named Main Street.

Then, there’s the worst villain in this play.

Us.

The new creature, homo sapien suburbanicus, has a need for speed and comfort. Going to Downtown Newhall was now just too much of a logistical hassle.

Why in the holy hell do we so despise the unique? What sort of society have we built where there is space only for the smothering mediocrity of planned urban development? Every precious square inch is now niggardly doled out. Like sheep, we allow ourselves to suffer parking places too small for any compact and told that we have choices: to blindly push a shopping cart and graze at that supercenter or to blindly push a shopping cart and graze at the other supercenter. Everyone’s tables, chairs, towel racks and toilet seats are variations of the same cheap particle board theme.

We deserve what we get.

We deserve to go to a shopping center where the employees are ordered not to wish a customer "Merry Christmas" because it might offend the one lawsuit-happy and acrimonious cheese weenie cult member.

Congratulations.

We have all killed one of the last remaining eclectic sanctuaries in this maddening compound of sameness.

As usual, we’ll shake our heads and bemoan yet another example of sucking the poetry from the valley.

We’ll quietly march one step closer to living in this instant soup society and becoming the dulled stars of our own science fiction movie.

Shame on all of us for not taking a few minutes here and there to buy a lousy screwdriver to save Newhall Hardware, for there shall never be anything like it again.

All are in agreement on one basic item: That the City of Santa Clarita is at least partially responsible for Newhall Hardware’s demise. The parking issues and the City of Santa Clarita’s decision to redirect traffic away from the Newhall Hardware location are stated by many as significant factors in Newhall Hardware’s decline in sales and the ultimate closing of the store.

Suzie Szabo, Manager of the Old Town Newhall Association, said in an interview with The Signal, "(The city) cut the flow of traffic to the merchants here. You take away people’s view of what’s down here."

An editorial in The Signal states that "The problem is that pedestrian-friendly means car-unfriendly. If you need a bolt or a hex driver, it’s likely you plan to get to the store in your car, not on horseback."

It should be pretty common knowledge by now that the City’s plans for Downtown (or Old Town) Newhall were based largely on the redevelopment project in Old Town Pasadena. However, what the City of Santa Clarita failed to consider in its Newhall plans was the fact that the Downtown Newhall is still an active business district, where the Pasadena area was largely vacant when redevelopment started there.

"Downtown Newhall is a living, if eclectic and minority-friendly, business district. It’s a shame we have to give up the truly old for the faux old," say The Signal’s editors.

Santa Clarita resident Shellie says, "This is so sad that such a quaint historic area is going to eventually be lost."

Agua Dulce resident Gary Hebdon had this to say about the redevelopment plans in a recent comment on this blog: "Saving gems like this [Newhall Hardware] is what the downtown Newhall Redevelopment should be about. It’s nice to see renovation but if we have cookie cutter stores for trendy shoppers, I’m afraid that we’ve missed the point of this whole exercise." Gary also says, "My hope is always that wise city planning can strike a delicate balance between growth and cultural preservation necessary to create a quality of life that all residents can embrace."

Meanwhile, employees of the City of Santa Clarita thought it easier to blame the closing of Newhall Hardware on the recent writers’ strike in the film industry. Personally, I can’t see why a fairly short-lived strike could have caused the failure of Newhall Hardware, but I guess it could have been a contributing factor to some minor extent.

Could Newhall Hardware have been saved? Hard to say, but it’s interesting to note that I’ve been posting articles on the folly of the Old Town Newhall Revitalization Project for months now, with most people asking "Why do you care?"

Well, now you know the answer to that question… How many more businesses will have to be put out of business before someone stands up to the Santa Clarita City Council to say NO! to the current redevelopment plans?

Still on the chopping block at the City of Santa Clarita are those businesses that are at the corner of Spruce Street and Lyons Avenue, adjacent to San Fernando Road.

The owners of the CarQuest building have already had the City’s purchase of the building approved by the City Council, although the status of the tenant (CarQuest) is apparently still in limbo.

The Antique Flower Garden already went out of business, but the building’s owner would likely want to find another tenant if this historical jail building wasn’t scheduled for tear-down or "redevelopment". Was the Antique Flower Garden’s business severely affected by the revised traffic patterns as well? Likely we’ll never know for sure…  As it currently stands, Manny Santana is facing at least two years of vacancy at this location unless he can find a tenant who is willing to open up shop without knowing how long they’ll be able to stay there.

White Light Chiropractic Center, Just Passing Thru and Paws for Fun are also still in limbo, with the building owners receiving low-ball offers from the City for the "purchase" of their properties and the tenants receiving a lot of conflicting information regarding their situations from Chris Price at Santa Clarita City Hall.

Yes, I know, some think that Just Passing Thru is not a good representation of what we should have in downtown Newhall, we’ve seen the comments on this on blog posts before. However, if you take the time to go into that store, you’ll find clean rooms, friendly staff, and normal clean-looking teens (with their parents in tow) waiting to have various parts of their anatomies pierced amongst the funky decor.

Auto Service Plus owner Larry Totter says that he has been "harassed" by the City of Santa Clarita for months now for doing "business as usual", which has apparently been recharacterized as "code violations" per the new Old Town Newhall building requirements. Totter recently stated that his legal bills for defending himself against the City’s lawsuits are upwards of $160k and still rising! Meanwhile, every time Larry attempts to get permits to correct these supposed code violations, the permits are denied. And of course Auto Service Plus has been affected by the new traffic patterns as well.

Danny at Sound Station has reported similar actions from the City of Santa Clarita, with threats of lawsuits due to supposed "code violations", and the City’s refusal to issue permits so he can correct these supposed violations.

Somewhere along the way to the current Old Town Newhall Revitalization plans, the City changed its building codes for the Newhall area to make it so automotive-related business are clearly given the "Keep Out" sign, and these two businesses are clearly caught in the middle of this code change.

Hey, I’m all for "prettying up" the Downtown Newhall area, but at what cost? Now that everyone’s in shock from the closing of Newhall Hardware, it seems like a good time to take a closer look at the redevelopment plans to see if they still make sense. Thus far, there’s been almost no public interest in this project at all.

Maybe now that Newhall Hardware has brought this situation into the spotlight, more people will take notice (and hopefully take action) regarding the Newhall Redevelopment plans. Do we really want to "give up the truly old for the faux old" and replace current businesses with "cookie cutter stores for trendy shoppers", or are there better options to consider?

Feel free to post your comments by clicking on the link below!

Newhall Hardware first opened its doors in 1947, and was purchased in 1998 by current owner Victor Feany. Newhall Hardware always prided itself on its "if we don’t have it, you don’t need it" attitude, with lots of hard-to-find items in stock.

Ironically, Newhall Hardware just celebrated its 60th anniversary with a big block party this last August. Apparently one of the biggest factors forcing the store closing was the lack of parking in the area, which probably wasn’t helped much by the City’s failed back-in parking plan that affected the store for several months.

Newhall Hardware will have a liquidation sale starting January 29 to sell off all remaining inventory. Many items are also being offered both on eBay and on Gun Broker Auctions.

This is the second significant store closing in the Downtown Newhall area in less than a month, with The Antique Flower Garden closing in late December. It’s very sad to see these Newhall landmarks closing their doors and becoming just an entry in the area’s history books.

Meanwhile, a small retail property nearby at 24363 San Fernando Road is listed for sale at $515,000 (with a $70,000 price reduction!). The previous tenant of this location was Discoteca El Sol.

What does this mean for Downtown Newhall and the Old Town Newhall Redevelopment Project? Nothing positive, that’s for sure! With existing businesses either shutting their doors voluntarily or being forced out by the City of Santa Clarita, it seems that Downtown Newhall is rapidly becoming Ghost Town Newhall.

Business owners along Spruce Street in Downtown Newhall report that they’re still in limbo over being evicted via the eminent domain process for the supposed Library Project that is slated to take their place. While I can’t offer anything specific on this blog at the moment as to what’s going on there, I can say that many of the property and business owners there feel that they’re being treated like the Coots in Bridgepoop.

In other Downtown Newhall news this week, the City of Santa Clarita voted to ante up $25k to change the San Fernando Road street name to Newhall Avenue from the 14 Freeway to 5th street so people would know that they’re passing Newhall on the freeway instead of San Fernando, thereby notifying the world that there’s shopping to be had if they jump off the freeway. Not sure where they’re trying to entice people to shop at, but at least it will no longer be a secret that you can access the Newhall area via the 14 Freeway.

Customers who visited the Antique Flower Garden around Christmas said they were told that orders could not be filled because "they had no flowers". It seems the next day the doors were closed and locked for good, and the phones were disconnected.

The owners of the Antique Flower Garden store are not the owners of the historic jail building. Manny Santana, the owner of the building, has repeatedly expressed his fears that this unique historical building would be torn down as part of the Newhall Redevelopment project.

Manny feels very strongly that the old jail should be preserved where it stands. "I may be the owner of the old jail or as I like to think of it, the caretaker of it while I’m here on God’s green Earth. This jail is part of our town, our history and each and every one of us should be concerned about preserving Newhall’s history for ourselves as well as our children’s children," says Manny. 

The historic jail building that housed the Antique Flower Garden is just one of several buildings that are slated for "redevelopment" as part of the Old Town Newhall Redevelopment Project. It is expected that most of the other buildings in the Spruce Street area will eventually be torn down and then replaced with either a strip mall or a combined use building with some public uses (a possible library) and some commercial uses (office space and retail).

MyNewMainStreet.com tries to make Old Town (Downtown) Newhall sound like an exciting shopping and dining district, with offerings for sports enthusiasts (Roger Dunn Golf Shop), "cultural" grocery stores, and more.

The list of current businesses in the Old Town Newhall area includes those in the newer buildings located at Lyons and Walnut (commonly referred to as the Victorian Building or the Yellow Building) and at Lyons and Chestnut (otherwise known as the Chestnut Building or the Blue Building). Although both of these buildings are in the redevelopment zone, they are newer, well-maintained buildings that will not need "redevelopment" in order to fit into the upscale image planned for the Old Town Newhall area.

Notably absent from the list of retailers and service providers on MyNewMainStreet.com are the businesses currently located on Spruce Street (White Light Chiropractic Center, the Antique Flower Garden, CarQuest Auto Parts, Paws for Fun Doggie Day Care, and Just Passing Thru Body Piercing) as well as all automotive-related businesses in the Old Town Newhall area.

Among the list of Old Town Newhall’s "consumer destinations" on MyNewMainStreet.com are the following:

• Victorian (Yellow) Building tenants
  • Egg Plantation
  • EmbroidMe
  • Fresh (women’s apparel)
  • Propinquities (clothing and home decor)
• Chestnut (Blue) Building tenants
  • Pilates Teck
  • David Tanner DDS
• Restaurants
  • Mexican (El Mas Cafe, El Pariente, El Trocadero, Jazmin’s Bakery, Jazmin’s Restaurant)
  • Egg Plantation (in the Yellow Victorian Building)
  • Maria’s Italian Deli
  • Thai Pepper
  • Way Station Coffee Shop
• Retail
  • Everything from Abe’s Pawn Shop to Newhall Hardware, including Roger Dunn Golf Shop, Soccer and More, Newhall Bicycle Company, Billy’s Board Shop, Poka-Dott Party Store, as well as the shops in the Yellow Victorian Building (Fresh, Propinquities).
• Services
  • Dentists (Tanner, Stowitts, Baltazar)
  • Hair Salons (Capelli, Lerma’s)

The majority of the businesses in the Old Town Newhall redevelopment area are housed in single-story older buildings that are clearly in need of some cleaning up and updating. The Downtown Newhall Specific Plan states that the area will be updated to include multi-use buildings that are 1-3 stories tall, with a focus on generating retail sales. That means that service businesses and automotive businesses will be given the boot as redevelopment continues, as "automotive services uses yield relatively low levels of retail sales and also blight pedestrian-intensive environments" according to the Plan.

Many of the current businesses in the Old Town Newhall area are located there either because of the cheap rent or the proximity to their target customers. It’s unclear whether these businesses will be able to survive revitalization with the expected rent increases in the area and the change in consumer demographics.

And of course the question remains as to whether the Downtown Newhall Specific Plan can be successfully implemented in the first place, since it calls for "at least one anchor tenant, and a mix of national and local vendors" to make it work. Neither an anchor tenant nor any national tenants (boutique stores) have been identified as having any interest in opening their doors in the Old Town Newhall area thus far.

Properties in this area include the CarQuest building, the Antique Flower Garden, White Light Chiropractic Center, Just Passing Thru Body Piercing, and Paws for Fun Doggie Day Care. These are being acquired so the so-called Library Project can be built on this site.

The Santa Clarita City Council is set to approve the acquisition of the CarQuest building for $1.715 million at their meeting on December 11, 2007. They are also allocating an additional $15,000 towards purchase costs (escrow, title, environmental reports, etc). The CarQuest operation is a tenant in this building, so the purchase is for the building itself, not for relocating its occupants. That will be handled under separate negotiations.

The CarQuest purchase actually includes three separate parcels: the lot the building sits on, and two parcels that make up the parking lot. The CarQuest facility faces San Fernando Road, and includes frontage on 11th Street and Spruce Street as well. The included parcels are as follows:

• 24533 San Fernando Road: 950 square foot lot (parking).
• 24522 San Fernando Road: 2,518 square foot lot (parking).
• 24535 San Fernando Road: 6,686 square foot lot with a 5,424 square foot building.

Property owners in the Spruce Street area of Old Town Newhall have been told that they may be allowed to remain in place up to 18 months after the City’s acquisition of this area is complete on a rent-free basis, since clearly leaving the buildings vacant for that period of time would invite squatters and vandalism to the area. However, at some point these businesses will need to set up shop elsewhere, so it’s unclear how many will take advantage of this "offer" and for how long.

What is unclear at this point is how much the City will offer to help these businesses relocate to new facilities within the Santa Clarita Valley. So far, the initial offers for the purchase of the buildings alone have been very low, but at least the CarQuest owners were able to negotiate a price that they were satisfied with.

It should be noted that none of these property owners are being given a choice of whether to "sell" to the City of Santa Clarita or not. They can either negotiate out of court, or the City will file formal eminent domain actions against them and let the court decide what they will receive for their properties. So far, all property owners in the area are attempting to negotiate with the City, with Paul Brotzman and Chris Price acting as the "good cop, bad cop" team during the negotiating process.

Stay tuned for more updates as they become available!

CarQuest Property Owners Reach Agreement

The owners of the CarQuest building have reportedly reached an agreement with the City of Santa Clarita for the purchase of their property. However, this is a different negotiation than for some of the other Spruce Street businesses, since this is not an owner-occupied building. Thus the negotiations were only for the building itself, and did not include relocation costs or relocation assistance.

Owner-Occupied Buildings Have More Complicated Negotiations

Owner-occupied buildings such as White Light Chiropractic and the Antique Flower Garden have much more complicated negotiations to look forward to, since they’ll be negotiating for both the price of the building and the costs for relocating their businesses. That is, if suitable locations can be found for them to relocate to!

Initially, the City had indicated the possibility of constructing new facilities in the redevelopment area prior to relocating businesses such as White Light Chiropractic, so these businesses could just move into the new building instead of being forced to find space elsewhere. This option seems to have fallen by the wayside, and it remains to be seen whether the City will help in finding new facilities for these businesses or not.

Library? What Library?

Chris Price from the City of Santa Clarita has indicated that the actual redevelopment is expected to take at least 15 years. Chris also repeated a prior statement that the current Spruce Street businesses can stay put for 18 months or more, even after the buy-out is complete, since the supposed library building won’t be started until at least that many months in the future.

I say "supposed library", since it doesn’t appear that the library will ever be approved, and thus the project slated for the Spruce Street area will be just a standard commercial (office and/or retail) building instead. Quite a neat trick, really, with proposing a massive library project that’s not likely to get approved by Los Angeles County… Eminent domain rules allow a City much more latitude in ousting current property owners if the project slated is for "public use" rather than for a strip mall.

Regardless of what type of building eventually occupies the Spruce Street area, the City’s Chris Price and Paul Brotzman are doing their "good cop, bad cop" routine with the Spruce Street property owners as the negotiation process continues.

Will the City Offer Friendly Eminent Domain to Ease the Tax Effects of These Sales?

So far, it doesn’t appear that the City of Santa Clarita is offering up the "friendly eminent domain" option that was mentioned in earlier interviews with Price and Brotzman. We’ll see if they decide to play hard-ball with this or not as the negotiations continue.

With "friendly eminent domain", the property owners would be able to defer the tax impact of the "sale" of their properties by using the IRS 1033 Exchange rules to defer the tax impact for up to 2 years, at which time they must purchase a replacement property.

In order to qualify for the 1033 Exchange, the property owner needs to be able to show that the property was subject to an involuntary conversion, which in this case is a taking of the property through condemnation (eminent domain). Thus it’s more of a documentation issue than anything else: The property owner needs to show that the City did not allow them any choice in the matter.

Newhall Redevopment: Pie in the Sky?

So far, there’s been lots of hype and very little action (or apparent interest) in the Old Town Newhall Redevelopment Project. Other than painting new parking stripes (twice), changing some street signs, adding murals (removable) to a few buildings, and changing some traffic patterns, the area remains as ugly and decrepit as before. The biggest difference is that now you have to take a closer look at the ugly buildings as you stop at the additional stop signs on newly-renamed Main Street.

In addition, there’s likely to be stiff competition in luring the more desireable retailers to the area, with the planned expansion of the Valencia Town Center Mall and the planned upscale hotel/retail complex dubbed The Avenue at Santa Clarita on the horizon. With no anchor store in sight for Old Town Newhall, they’ll be hard-pressed to attract the boutique stores that they’ve been banking on.