This month marks an exciting milestone for the premier arts and entertainment district in Santa Clarita. Old Town Newhall is one step closer to offering even more opportunities for culture, movies, parking and an all-around good time!

It is all taking place on one block between our beautiful Old Town Newhall Library and the rest of Main Street. Earlier this year we broke ground on the new parking structure! Once complete, it will offer 372 parking spaces and a special event area on the rooftop deck. The parking structure will be open in the first half of 2018. This new structure will make parking much easier in Old Town Newhall, so you can check out the great restaurants and retailers, and attend popular events in the area such as Light Up Main, the Cowboy Festival and all the Thursdays@Newhall fun. If you want to see a step by step view of the progress made so far – check out the Work Zone Cam! There is a time-lapse video showing the construction of the parking structure at OldTownNewhall.com/Mixed-Use-Project.

This new parking structure will also be ready for residents who will be heading to the area to check out the Laemmle Theatre and Newhall Crossings when those projects are open for business in early 2019. The Laemmle Theatre will be a seven screen art house cinema with 2,300 square feet of retail/restaurant space and an outdoor private event space. It will fill a void in our City for independent film buffs who used to drive to Los Angeles to take in Indie and film festival favorites.

Newhall Crossings will give people the opportunity to live right in the heart of the excitement. The project includes 47 residential units, over 20,000 square feet of retail/restaurant space, a public plaza area and subterranean residential parking. The groundbreaking for both the Laemmle Theatres and Newhall Crossings will take place Thursday, October 12, 2017 at 10 a.m.

These new projects in addition to a smorgasbord of new retail, dining and sipping options, and a great selection of art exhibits and entertainment venues, make Old Town Newhall a budding hot spot. In addition, the Luxen Hotel, the first ever boutique hotel to open up in Newhall, will offer up 42 rooms for out-of-towners who come to check out the fun.

Just down 9th Street, another type of business is booming. The Santa Clarita Business Incubator stimulates economic growth through entrepreneurship and enterprise development. In partnership with the College of the Canyons and the Small Business Development Center, the incubator provides participating creative and technology startup businesses with low-cost office space, meeting rooms, customized trainings, a mentorship and networking program, and one-on-one consulting services.

Are you an entrepreneur looking to grow your creative and technology focused business? The business incubator is currently seeking new tenants! For more information and to obtain program and application materials, visit ThinkSantaClarita.com.

I am excited about the business opportunities available in our community, which translate to entertainment opportunities for our community. I’ll see you in Old Town Newhall!

Mayor Smyth is a member of the Santa Clarita City Council and can be reached at csmyth@santa-clarita.com.