Santa Clarita’s City Council voted unanimously this week to roll out a multi-part recovery package for Old Town Newhall, where an Aug. 24 fire tore through part of the historic Main Street block and left surviving businesses struggling with months of lost foot traffic.
The fire started at the south end of the block and burned north before firefighters stopped it at the former El Trocadero site. Care Tucker boutique and the Newhall Refinery restaurant were destroyed outright. But the damage didn’t stop at the fire line — nearby shops that never caught fire are reporting some of the toughest months in memory. Dani Ibarra, owner of Yoga Yoga, says her studio is running at roughly 30% capacity. Louise Castaldo of Eighth and Rail reported sales down 17% over the six weeks following the blaze compared to the same stretch last year. Both owners point to lingering (and, according to city officials, unfounded) customer worries about air quality, plus the simple fact that a visibly damaged block scares off casual shoppers.
The council’s response leans on marketing as much as rebuilding. A $40,000 agreement with the Old Town Newhall Association will fund a dedicated “shop local” campaign to pull customers back to the businesses still open. To address the eyesore left by the fire, the city approved a 715-foot decorative art wall — roughly $313,000 — to cover the burned stretch along Main Street, Market Street and Railroad Avenue. A mayor-appointed committee with two arts commissioners will select the artwork. In the shorter term, decorative screening will dress up the construction fencing in time for the Light Up Main Street holiday season.
The city is also leaning on its “Senses” block party series to funnel more visitors into the district, with plans to add spring dates and shift some events farther north toward the Newhall Library to spread foot traffic to businesses away from the fire zone. City Manager Ken Striplin said the full cost will be folded into a broader fire-recovery budget adjustment, with each Senses event running about $20,000.
For LA-area business owners, Old Town Newhall is a useful case study in what a secondary disaster looks like — not the fire itself, but the slow bleed of foot traffic afterward, and how a city and a merchants’ association can try to counter it with marketing dollars and public events rather than waiting for construction alone to bring people back.
Source: The Santa Clarita Valley Signal
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