Valencia Loses Welcome Mat in Another Sign of the Times

OK, it wasn’t as famous as the Hollywood sign.

But before the Valencia sign near the Golden State Freeway was removed without warning--at least temporarily--this week to make way for a big shopping center, it was every bit as meaningful to some residents of the Santa Clarita Valley.

“It said, ‘Hey, you’ve come home,’ ” said Ron Winkler, vice president of the Stevenson Ranch Town Council, who lives across the freeway from the residential community of Valencia and is concerned about traffic and noise from the proposed mall.

The removal of the white stones that spelled Valencia in letters more than eight feet high is the story of Southern California: Shopping centers on the march.

This one, Valencia Marketplace, hasn’t even been reviewed, much less approved, by Los Angeles County officials.

But the developers--Riley/Pearlman of Los Angeles and Newhall Land & Farming Co.--appear confident that the county will take kindly to the 85-acre project south of Magic Mountain when they submit it next month.

Riley/Pearlman spokesman Bill Mitchell also hopes to win over the Stevenson Ranch crowd, whose opposition to the project was increased by removal of the landmark, which has identified Valencia since the late 1970s.

The company plans to build two restaurants, a gas station, drugstore, supermarket and four warehouse-type stores on the land owned by Newhall Land.

“I feel strongly about the high quality we’re bringing into the community,” Mitchell said.

But Winkler called the removal of the sign “the first stake in our heart. They said they’d listen to our concerns before going forward with the project, and then they went ahead and did this.”

Not everyone in the valley is irked by the loss of the sign.

“This is Santa Clarita, not Valencia, anyway, so I’m glad,” Santa Clarita City Councilwoman Jan Heidt said.

Valencia is one of four communities that merged less than five years ago to form Santa Clarita.

Regardless, Newhall Land, which built Valencia, will rebuild the sign “in the near future” on a different, as yet unchosen site, said Marlee Lauffer, spokeswoman for the company.