On Thursday, December 16, 2010, the City of Santa Clarita will be celebrating the completion of phase 2 of the Old Town Newhall Streetscape Project. It really should be the celebration of adding more lipstick to the town pig because that is all that is going on in Old Town Newhall.

Last April I wrote a piece about the Newhall Business district and little has changed other than a few buildings were being knocked down to make way for the new library. Just a few blocks west on Lyons Ave. a new Walgreens was built and it just seemed odd that the City didn’t try to convince that retailer to go into the downtown Newhall area as it would have been at least some kind of anchor store.

There just doesn’t seem to be a viable, cohesive, or concise plan for the downtown Newhall business district. It continues to appear to be a periodic scramble to do something, anything to give the appearance that somehow the City has some sort of plan.

There is none!

To many, it just seems like there has been one plan after another over the past 30 years since I first moved to the Santa Clarita Valley. So I asked Mr. SCV, a.k.a. John Boston, about how many plans there have been for the downtown Newhall area. John is the preeminent Santa Clarita Valley Historian, local humorist, writer, the original Time Ranger, Beacon columnist and all around good guy, so I figured he’d know better than anyone.

Here is what Mr. SCV had to say about plans for the Downtown Newhall business district in a running history log that begins in 1876:

1. It actually started in 1876 with the founding of Newhall at the present-day location of Saugus, centered around the future Saugus Cafe. Some historical reports note that it was a lack of water that caused the entire town to literally pick up every board (including the train depot) and move it south, the centerpiece being around Market & Main today.  I’ve read from historian A.B. Perkins that the reason why they moved was because it was too windy. I’m not sure I’d buy that. One theory not bandied about much is that Henry Mayo Newhall was building his 5-star resort hotel, The Southern. Perhaps he wanted it at where Market & Main is and the town followed his lead. Seems more likely.That was 1878.
2. Around that same time, Mr. Newhall used the Western Development Company to create detailed plans for the entire valley — roads, water systems, oil pipes, parks, etc. Those basic guidelines would become Valencia and Newhall Ranch.
3. There’s not much info around the early 1900s. But in the early 1920s, business leaders got together to figure a way to spruce up Downtown. Some called it an eyesore. They were right. Meetings were held. Speeches made. We investigated becoming the city of Newhall in 1925. Nothing happened, except a giant neon sign “Newhall” was constructed. Also, State Highway 6 was run through town. These planning meetings dragged on to the start of the Depression. Nothing much was discussed until the late 1930s.
4. Right before World War II there was more than serious talk about building LAX here. A state bond measure was approved. The war came and that disappeared, along with plans to make Placerita into a national park.
5. Of all things, a poker game probably did more to start the City of Santa Clarita than any other event. In the 1950s, many of the SCV’s movers and shakers were at a poker game at the American Legion. The vice squad from downtown LA busted the game, confiscating $331 in cash, chips and tables. I believe a couple of guys were arrested. This INFURIATED the local leaders who rightly wondered why in the hell vice had nothing better to do on a Saturday night than raid essentially a garage poker game. The second thing that united locals was that twice, the county came in and, APPARENTLY without telling anyone, changed many street names (Spruce to San Fernando Road, etc.) and then also, changed every street address. This changed the feel of the valley forever. No longer did we live in houses with two or three digit addresses. We now had 5-digit addresses. This galvanized a break-away-from-LA move.
6. In the 1950s, there was a move to create a city of Newhall and, again, spruce up the downtown area. Never happened! Ditto a while later of creating a city of Newhall-Saugus. Interestingly, talks were held about the SCV moving out of L.A. County and merging with Ventura County, in that we had more in common.
7. Very early 1960s, an architect was hired to design a uniting motif (swear, even though I can put “uniting” and “motif” together in a sentence, I’m straight). He came up with this concept that was, no offense, over-the-top Frontierland. It called for literally lifting all the businesses and having old-fashioned raised wooden sidewalks. The storefronts would be, again, wooden, Frontierland-esque. Hiding the railroad tracks, there was to be a giant U.S. Army-like 19th century wooden fort wall on San Fernando Road as you enter town. People coming in would drive under a giant set of steer horns.
8. A move to incorporate Newhall into a city failed in 1964 narrowly here. Local developers (Newhall Land at the top) help kill the plan.
9. Most of the attention of the 1970s was spent on watching Valencia grow. I remember merchants being rather gleeful that this new development would bring all these customers to downtown Newhall. Instead, the opposite happened. Slowly, the old businesses dried up and also around this time started the influx of Hispanics, both American and illegal alien. This one-two punch really affected the area. Also, twice locals tried to form Canyon County, breaking away from L.A.County. It would essentially be the borders of the SCV. One early name for the proposed county was Nesaval — taking the first letters of Newhall, Saugus, Valencia.
10. In 1981, we started the Western Walk of Stars. It was pretty cool in the early goings. But, as downtown Newhall deteriorated, it got so bad and the neighborhood such an eyesore and sometimes danger, they wouldn’t even drive into town to show those being enshrined where their bronze saddles would be placed.
11. In the 1980s, I seem to recall something like $50 million in some form of government bonds/grants, whatever was to be used to, again, revitalize Downtown Newhall. All that happened was that they put in those paver sidewalks on San Fernando Road at Market and at Lyons. A couple of Westernish entry logos with a wagon wheel were installed and the entrance to Hart Park was altered.

Whatever master plan there might be for the Newhall Business District it appears to be a piecemeal and haphazard map to disaster. To me, the death-blow was closing off the road on the north end of business district forcing vehicles onto the bypass. This is exactly what the City should not have done!

With the way that the area currently looks and the lack of any kind of foot or vehicle traffic, I doubt that any establishment in their right mind would want to open up a shop on that stretch of San Fernando Road or Main Street as it’s called now. The area looks ramshackle and not conducive to doing business or to opening a new business.

Look at other areas of Los Angeles that have developed old town and/or hip shopping areas like Colorado in Pasadena or Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles or Montana Avenue in Santa Monica. They all have open roads that allow traffic to circulate through the business district not a forcible bypass like the one currently in place in the Newhall Business District.

The City of Santa Clarita should re-examine what they are doing to the Newhall Business District before the area slides further into a malaise. Traffic should be allowed to travel effortlessly from San Fernando Road to Main Street so that motorists can see what is available along that business corridor. It will be good for all the businesses and will hasten the rejuvenation of that entire shopping district.

If they don’t do that there is little hope of attracting any “anchor” businesses to the area in its current state. Adding a library or trying to get a movie theater is admirable but what the district needs is a master developer, a clear vision and the financial resources to transform that district quickly and in one grand plan.

You can have as many ribbon cuttings as you want for new streetscape and landscaping but if there are few or no businesses open then what’s the point. Once again the City of Santa Clarita leadership lacks vision on a project that has become nothing more than a joke around the valley.  

Until there is a vision the Newhall Business District can Rest In Peace.   

Dave Bossert- Commentary 

Dave Bossert is a community volunteer who serves on a number of boards and councils. His commentaries represent his own opinions and not necessarily the views of any organization he may be affiliated with or those of the West Ranch Beacon.