Santa Clarita City Council continues to buy up Spruce Street properties.

The Santa Clarita City Council is set to approve the acquisition of 24519 Spruce Street, or the White Light Chiropractic building, at tonight’s City Council meeting.

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.

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