The city of Santa Clarita staff is recommending the City Council approve a project that would demolish the old Newhall courthouse to clear the way for condos and another capstone in the revitalization of Old Town Newhall, according to the agenda for Tuesday’s council meeting.
City planners are recommending the City Council approve permits and plans for a five-story mixed-use building with 78 units and 5,200 square feet of retail.
The project is about three-quarters of an acre at the three-way corner of Main Street, Market Street, and Railroad Avenue, across the street from the Jan Heidt Metrolink Station. In order to build, the developer needs to demolish Mac’s Pool Supply (24316 Main St.), Horseshoe on Main (24300 Main St.) and the historic Masonic Lodge/Courthouse (22505 Market St.) buildings.
The city states that the developer is meeting the requirement to demolish the courthouse, based on a deal cut with city officials. The developer also technically does not have to provide parking due to Assembly Bill 2097, because the project is within a half-mile of a Metro station. However, the plans call for 142 parking spaces, including 20 guest spaces, and for the developer to pay an in-lieu fee for the commercial parking.
The plans would be a sort of book-end for Serrano Development’s other project at the other side of Main Street, Newhall Crossings, another condo-retail mix hailed by its neighboring businesses for helping to keep steady foot traffic in their doors.
The plans are part of a deal negotiated between the developer Jason Tolleson and Mayor Pro Tem Laurene Weste. It came out during a Planning Commission discussion last month that City Manager Ken Striplin was not a party to the talks.
A statement from the city previously said such conversations between council members and project applicants are not uncommon, and Weste indicated she was negotiating for a fee for the city, which also had precedent.
Critics have complained the plan, which calls for $750,000 to the city for historic preservation, represents a conflict of interest for Weste. She has said she plans to mention her talks to the council when the matter goes before the council, and that the effort did not represent a conflict because the funds would be for the city.
The Planning Commission discussion revealed that the developer has not yet studied the possibility for moving the courthouse — which was included on a list of historic structures the city created in November 2012.
The city’s agenda for the meeting cites a Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society letter as evidence that a move of the building is not feasible.
However, the Planning Commission discussion also revealed the developer never had any intention to make an in-depth study of the feasibility of a move, saying that if he had known the courthouse had to be moved, he never would have put it in the project.
The project was originally proposed in May 2024 for a preliminary review of the plan, which only included three addresses on Main Street.
“Ye Olde Courthouse,” built in 1931, has a second floor made of lumber from the nearby Hap-A-Lan Dance Hall, which was the community hot spot in the 1920s and later repurposed as a morgue after the St. Francis Dam disaster.
Since the proposal of the deal, the SCV Historical Society has written a letter to the city stating that since the inside of the building was completely remodeled in the 1960s when the local court operations moved to Valencia, it no longer has the same historical cache.
The discussion is scheduled to happen at Santa Clarita City Hall at 6 p.m. Tuesday.
