Light Up Main Street Comes Back to a Different Old Town Newhall

"There's still like 10 of us that are open and you know, we want to have a party. It's still a destination place to come to." Louise Castaldo, co-owner of Eighth & Rail, said that to The Signal in mid-October, seven weeks after fire burned most of a block on Main Street.

The party she meant is coming. Light Up Main Street returns on Saturday, Nov. 21, 4 to 8 p.m., with the tree lighting at about 5:30. It is the first large holiday crowd Old Town will see since Aug. 24, and the city has built this season around one problem. The fire destroyed six businesses. Since then, the larger threat to everyone still operating is that people stopped coming because they assume the whole street is gone.

What burned, and what's still standing on the block

The fire started early on Monday, Aug. 24, and crews fought it from about 3 a.m. until well into the afternoon, KHTS reported. The buildings shared an attic, so it spread north through the block. Fire and the demolition that followed leveled every address from 24254 to 24274 Main Street, plus 24274 Railroad Avenue behind them.

The businesses lost were The Newhall Refinery, Care Tucker Style House, The MAIN, Source Inc., El Trocadero Mesquite Grill and Cantina, and Gary's Auto Collision Center. The buildings were nearly 100 years old. The El Trocadero building went up in 1935 as the Newhall 5-10-25 Cent Store, back when it was 644 Spruce Street. It became 24274 San Fernando Road, then 24274 Main Street when the city renamed the road in 2007.

Two buildings on that block survived. The Canyon Theatre Guild, a Western Victorian–style playhouse built in 2000, came through largely untouched. So did the former Newhall Sheriff's Substation No. 6, built in 1926 and now the Guild's business office.

Why the businesses that didn't burn are hurting

The damage didn't stop at the fence line. At the Oct. 13 City Council meeting, Yoga Yoga's owner said most of her classes were running at about 30% capacity. She also said unfounded worries about air quality, plus fewer places open nearby, were keeping people away. City Manager Ken Striplin said there was no evidence behind the air-quality rumors.

Eighth & Rail sits at the other end of the street from the fire. Castaldo said its numbers were down 17% from the same six-week stretch a year earlier. "It's just kind of like the whole area has been deflated," she told The Signal. "We had really started to become a destination area." KHTS also reported that Eighth & Main Hair Lounge and Cutz on Main were seeing less foot traffic and fewer new clients.

Mayor Laurene Weste said timing is the whole problem. "Time here is really critical because people will start to move away from going there if improvements don't happen," she told The Signal.

What the city did to bring people back

The council voted unanimously for a package aimed at getting people back onto the street, starting with how the street looks.

The smaller options were $130,000 for 300 feet covering just Main Street, or $187,000 for 440 feet covering Main and Market. An ad hoc committee will pick the art: the mayor, the mayor pro tem and two arts commissioners. Robert Younkin, a business owner who chairs the Old Town Newhall Association, told The Signal the effect is partly psychological. Shared efforts like these, he said, show owners who feel isolated "that if we are working together and everyone pitched in, like we really can do something."

Spending has started to follow foot traffic, too. Since Sept. 17, the city's Open Rewards pilot covers participating Old Town Newhall businesses. Shoppers get 5% cash back in the app, either by linking a card or photographing a receipt, and the rewards are good for three months. The city points shoppers to the app to find out which businesses take part.

Walking Main Street on Nov. 21

Light Up's main stage sits at Main Street and Lyons Avenue, by the Old Town Newhall branch of the Santa Clarita Public Library at 24500 Main Street. Main Street addresses get lower as you head south from the stage. That means a walk from the stage to the Canyon Theatre Guild at 24242 Main passes the businesses that are still open and then the fenced-off block. This is also why Striplin said business owners wanted SENSES to move farther north, closer to the library.

Here's the walk from north to south, using addresses from the Old Town Newhall business directory:

1. The stage and library at 24500 Main Street, at Lyons.
2. Eighth & Main Hair Lounge at 24355½ Main Street.
3. Cutz on Main at 24333 Main Street.
4. Old Town Junction at 24275 Main Street. It ran the on-street bar at the Sept. 17 SENSES.
5. The fire site from 24274 down to 24254 Main, behind the holiday screening.
6. Canyon Theatre Guild at 24242 Main Street.

Two more are a short turn off Main. Yoga Yoga is at 24421 Walnut Street, and Eighth & Rail is at 22505 8th Street.

The city is billing the night as five blocks of live music, food trucks, an on-street bar, shopping, 20 tons of snow, photos with Santa, crafts, carnival games and ice sculpting. DrinkPAK is the presenting sponsor. As of late October, the performer schedule and event map were still listed as coming soon.

Getting there and around:

• Lyons Avenue between Walnut and Railroad, and Main Street between Lyons and the roundabout, close from 6 a.m. to midnight on Nov. 21. Detours run on Railroad Avenue and Newhall Avenue.
• Free parking includes the Old Town garage at 22551 9th Street and other nearby lots.
• A free shuttle runs from Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church.

The playhouse that kept the lights on

The Canyon Theatre Guild has been the one fixed point on the block, and it took in neighbors after the fire. When the fire burned The MAIN, Big Sandwich Theatre Company moved its comedy Change the Station to the Guild for Oct. 2 through 4. A quarter of ticket sales went to Santa Clarita Shakespeare Company, which lost equipment in the fire.

The Guild's holiday season runs right after Light Up. It's a Wonderful Life plays Nov. 27 through Dec. 23, and the youth fundraiser Holipalooza is on Dec. 4, both at the Guild's playhouse on Main Street. If you come for the tree lighting and come back for a show, you'll walk past the fire site twice in a month.

What could change the street next

Several decisions still in progress could reshape Old Town after the holidays:

• A second act for The MAIN. Before Oct. 27, the city put on the council agenda a $1.9 million purchase of the former KHTS property at 24318–24322 Main Street, the old Newhall Hardware store. The goal is a central site for possible public uses, including arts and entertainment, and any future improvements would need separate review. "We lost The Main, so maybe we can have a 'Main: Take 2,'" Weste said, as The Signal reported.
• Parking at Main and 6th. The same agenda included a design-build contract for a six-level parking structure, SCVNews reported. The city's project page describes more than 300 spaces, ground-floor retail, sidewalk improvements south of 6th Street, and temporary public parking during and after construction.
• A possible new home for The Newhall Refinery. Brewery Draconum served its last call on Sept. 28. A few days later, an alcohol-license notice naming The Newhall Refinery appeared on its door, KHTS reported. The Refinery hadn't confirmed a move when that story ran.
• A longer SENSES season. KHTS reported that the council supported expanding the block party in 2027 beyond its current April-through-September run, starting in March.

Until any of that happens, the screening goes up, the tree gets lit at about 5:30, and the businesses south of the library will be open on Nov. 21.

At Kym De Lorenzo, we pay attention to how a street like Main gets presented, because how a place looks changes who shows up. That goes for a downtown block and for a home. If you own in Newhall and want to know how this year's changes in Old Town factor into what your home is worth, Request Your Free Home Valuation and we'll go through it with you.