Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : City, Firms Unite in Development Plans

By PHIL SNEIDERMAN

June 8, 1994 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

LANCASTER —

City officials have joined forces with private business owners in two deals aimed at putting an office building on Lancaster Boulevard and a new golf center in an east side industrial area.

To encourage the construction of the 7,000-square-foot office building, City Council members Monday approved a development agreement with Ronald A. Green, owner of several McDonald’s franchises in the Antelope Valley. Green has told city officials that his present office building is too small.

The city’s Redevelopment Agency will buy Green’s present building on West Norberry Street, then sell him a parcel at Lancaster Boulevard and Beech Avenue, where Green plans to build a new headquarters. City officials said it will be the first new office building on Lancaster Boulevard, a downtown street the city is trying to revitalize, in eight years.

The project is expected to cost the Redevelopment Agency $450,000--a sum that includes the original cost of buying the Lancaster Boulevard site, demolishing the older buildings on the site and relocating two tenants.

“I believe this is an example of revitalization that we need to encourage,” Councilman George Runner said.

Before they were elected in April, council members Michael Singer and Deborah Shelton had criticized the city for using subsidies to attract new businesses. But on Monday, both supported the Green deal.

Singer said he did not object because the city was assisting a businessman who was already operating in Lancaster. “We’re not bringing in someone from the outside,” he said.

In the second deal, the city and the Redevelopment Agency will lease a 20-acre site near Avenue K and 5th Street East to Lancaster Golf Center, run by businessman Steve Oh. He will build a nine-hole golf course and a driving range on the land, then pay the city a monthly lease fee or a percentage of the gross revenues, whichever is larger.

The project will create about 23 new jobs and generate additional tax revenue to the city, officials said.