[KHTS] – A section of the property formerly known as Sterling Gateway – once pitched as a possible location for Castaic High School – is going to be a business park.
The plans changed after seller Hunt Williams learned he was bound by deed restrictions that prevented a school from being sited on the property, which is adjacent to the Newhall Land-developed Valencia Commerce Center.
So on Thursday a new group of partners broke ground on the future IAC Commerce Center, a venture of International Airport Centers and Sheridan Ebbert Real Estate Development.
“The importance of this project is to provide future job growth in the Santa Clarita Valley, benefiting the county and state. You have a number of nine buildings going into this industrial park. That means when we go abroad and tell people to come, invest here and create jobs — we now have a place to do that,” said Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, who participated in the groundbreaking ceremony. “You don’t have the business tax and a lot of regulations that are anti-jobs in the Santa Clarita Valley. You have regulations that encourage development and job creation.“
The IAC Commerce Center will be located on about 116 acres of land near Highway 126 and Commerce Drive at the end of Witherspoon Parkway. There will be about 1.3 million square-feet of office space.
“Instead of choosing Los Angeles city that has all of the regulations and taxes, you come to Santa Clarita and have a welcome wagon for them,” Antonovich said. “As a result, you will see these buildings filled with entrepreneurs and businesses when they are completed as we’re seeing with the other industrial park here.”
Sterling Gateway officials owned the property for years. Founded by Theodore Kessler Sterling, who discovered oil in the 1950s in Castaic, Sterling Gateway officials have been working with developing the property and hope to build 230 homes, a park and a shopping center on the remaining 200 acres that the business still owns, said Williams, who is Sterling’s grandson.
“The groundbreaking for the IAC Commerce Center is very important for us in the city of Santa Clarita because it’s in the Santa Clarita Valley,” said Councilmember TimBen Boydston. “Whenever you create space that’s industrial space, manufacturing space or commercial space, that generates jobs and that’s the most important thing. We have a huge demand in Santa Clarita Valley for more industrial space, light industrial space and business park space.”
The IAC Commerce Center would potentially create 2,600 permanent jobs, Antonovich said.
The homes would be built near the center for the employees to live in, Williams said.
“It’s been a very long time coming but it’s going to be a great project. It’ll create a lot of jobs and bring a lot of jobs to the area which, I think, is also going to create a demand for housing,” Williams said. “Which is great. It’s a great economic project and I’m just really happy that finally we’re breaking ground and can see the direct impact that it’s going to make.”
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Bitter much?