Up Bouquet Canyon Road, a little past Central Park, a pair of business parks have proprietors saying their businesses are struggling to survive, thanks to an 11-month closure of Bouquet Canyon Road.
The closure, part of a plan approved by the Santa Clarita City Council one week after the 2020 election, is for a realignment of Bouquet Canyon Road “intended to facilitate local and regional travel through a more direct route between Plum Canyon Road and Vasquez Canyon Road,” according to city planning documents.
But there are two business and commercial centers along the popular route to the Antelope Valley that have been devastated by the detour, traffic-wise: Plum Commerce Center at Plum Canyon Road, and Bouquet Plaza, about a block north of there, right before cars are forced to make a U-turn.
If nothing changes, Nabil Khalil, who lives near his store and goes by “Bill” to his regulars over the past 17 years at Bouquet Plaza Liquor, doesn’t think he’ll make it through the year because of the detour.
He estimated his business is down by about 70% just since the start of the Feb. 13 closure.
Representatives from the city’s economic development office met with business owners, including Khalil, Thursday morning to hear their grievances and offer advice.
John Meshriky, who owns and operates the 7-Eleven in the Plum Commerce Center on Bouquet Canyon, said he isn’t against development, and he’s trying to be supportive of the city.
But he also said his receipts are down somewhere between 30% and 40% from about one month after the closure, and he knows that without some serious intervention, he won’t make it 11 more.
Change of plans
Lennar’s master plan called for “all planning areas fully developed and occupied by 2024-2025,” according to a June 2023 addendum to an environmental impact report on the city’s road-realignment plan.
Due to a variety of factors, shovels didn’t hit the ground to build the 375 for-sale homes until fall of 2025, and when the din of construction began, so did outreach about the road closure that had been approved nearly five years earlier.
That came as a shock to a number of business owners, including Meshriky, who purchased his business directly in the closure’s path, at the intersection of Bouquet and Plum canyon roads, and just months before the shutdown.
Drivers approaching Plum Canyon from the south can turn right, pull a U-turn at Rodgers Drive about a quarter-mile up the road, come back the same distance and then take a right into his parking lot. There’s no direct access for the public from just north of Bouquet Plaza, where Khalil’s business is, as there’s a turn-around gate at Benz Road. The lack of access removes much of the convenience from the store, both Merishky and Khalil said, which is foundational to their service.
Meshriky said he knew it wasn’t the city’s fault that it wasn’t disclosed prior to his purchase, but the city still approved a road closure that takes about 5,000 trips from his business, one way, each day, from their business park. He’s lost thousands of dollars already, he said, there’s been no plan to help and he similarly questions whether his business will survive unless something is done.
Mik Prajapati shared a similar sentiment about his Stamp and Mail Center next to Plum Canyon Road.
City, Lennar response
Prajapati said he believes the development will be good for the city in the end, but the road closure will certainly ruin the business he recently opened. In the meeting with city officials, he asked whether there could be expanded access to the Benz Road gate.
A few of the business owners mentioned Shadow Valley and Lily of the Valley as two main sources of traffic that were no longer available.
During Thursday’s meeting, Tyler Pledger, the city’s economic development manager, mentioned more than once that the city’s “traffic mitigation measures have been exhausted,” and that some of their questions might be best answered by Lennar.
Lennar did not respond to a request for comment as of this story’s publication. Its outreach for the project has been repeatedly criticized as inadequate, by both city officials and residents.
Marci Fischer, owner of Marci’s Bar and Grill, said the situation has been problematic for her since January, when the city started putting up signs about the pending closures.
“People were calling, ‘How are we going to get there?’ So, I sent emails to the city that night,” she said, adding her business has been down about 30% since the closure.
The city responded that day and assisted with social media ads, but she said that won’t help the business survive. She was encouraged to reach out to Lennar, so she did, and even offered a discount lunch for the construction workers, she said.
Few have taken up the offer, she said, and she heard from some of the workers it’s because they only have a half-hour at lunch and, worse, part of the problem is the time it takes to access her business because of the closure.
If Benz Road could stay open, it would be a big help, she said.
“It’s not only for two, three months, it’s for a whole year, which is a long time,” Fischer said. “And not only that, this is our livelihood,” said the mother of two. Her other concern was how she was going to continue taking care of her 12 employees.
Prajapati said he attended the town hall hosted by the Miami-based home builder, the nation’s second-largest by number of homes sold. He came away with the impression that they didn’t care at all about the impact to the businesses impacted by the closure.
Fischer shared a similar sentiment about an in-person meeting she had with a Lennar representative at Khalil’s store.
Pledger and Kayla Marquez, a city project technician, told the business owners about advertisements they have placed with local media outlets, and also suggested a campaign where the local businesses in the park could support each other, with benefits or rewards that help each other out for visiting their businesses.
Khalil and Merishky appreciated the support, but both also said at the end of the day, if there’s no traffic, there’s no point in a convenience store at the location.
Lennar representatives did not respond to multiple requests for comment Thursday.
