Santa Clarita Makes Pitch to Lure Cruise Line to City

Coveting the 600 jobs and the estimated $2.7 million it would bring to the city annually if Princess Cruises moved its headquarters here, the City Council voted Tuesday night to assure the company it would pay no business tax for at least 15 years.

The 5-0 vote to offer the promise or “declaration of intent,” however, is not legally binding on future councils, according to City Atty. Carl Newton, and was well short of Princess Cruises’ request for a 15-year written guarantee that the city not impose any gross receipts taxes on businesses.

“You can’t bind a future City Council like that,” said City Manager George Caravalho in an interview Tuesday afternoon.

But the declaration will serve as a show of good faith and represent something that both sides could rely on, Newton said.

The city, which does not now charge any business tax--and has no plans to enact one, according to Caravalho--is trying to lure Princess Cruises to moving its main office from Century City to Santa Clarita.

Caravalho said city staff members estimate that half the company’s 600 employees would move to Santa Clarita and boost the city’s sales tax.

Princess Cruises, the largest cruise line on the West Coast, has offers from other cities as well, and there is a chance the company will stay in Century City, its home since the early 1980s, according to Julie Benson, spokeswoman for the company.

Princess Cruises said whichever way the council voted would play only “a small part” in the company’s decision. “We’re talking to them and conducting very active negotiations,” Benson said. “But no decisions have been made.”

Benson would not give details on what company operations might be moved or even why a move is being considered, other than to say that the company, with bases worldwide, has been experiencing rapid growth.

“We’ve had to take a look at where we want to live,” Benson said.

Princess Cruises’ officials hope to make a decision on whether to move by the end of the year, Benson added.

Marlee Lauffer, spokeswoman for the Newhall Land & Farming Co., which has been leading the negotiations with the cruise line, said Newhall Land has agreed to build a six-story building for Princess Cruises on Newhall Land’s Town Center property in Valencia. The cruise line would occupy the top five floors with the first floor dedicated to restaurants and retail stores.

Opposition to the city’s plan came from Lynn Plambeck, a vice president of the Santa Clarita Organization to Plan the Environment (SCOPE), who argued the city was giving away too much.

“They should offer the same deal to the small businesses,” Plambeck said. “It makes it very difficult for the small businesses to compete if the big businesses get a tax break that they don’t have.”

Caravalho said Santa Clarita does not charge a citywide business tax in order to raise revenues, as many other cities do. Big or small businesses pay only if they require city inspection.