The Lancaster City Council has approved an ambitious proposal to turn a vacant 44-acre parcel of city-owned land into a Tuscan-style mixed-use complex with as many as three hotels, including what would be the first Hilton in the rapidly growing Antelope Valley. Plans for the site at 27th Street West and Lancaster Boulevard call for a 250,000-square-foot, pedestrian-friendly center with a combination of retail, restaurants, an office element and an 86-room Hampton Inn and 92-room Homewood Suites. Vern Lawson, economic director/redevelopment director for Lancaster, said the city was approached several months ago by developer SC Premier Properties LLC with plans for a mixed-use center. Under the arrangement, the city will sell the property for $8.2 million to SC, which will create a master plan for the site. Lawson said SC would then resell about five acres to KPartners Hospitality Group, a San Antonio hotel developer that operates nine hotels in four western states, including the Hampton Inn & Suites in Palmdale. For the Lancaster site, KPartners will team up with Beverly Hills-based Hilton Hotels Corp. to develop and operate the two, three-story hotels. Then, depending on demand, the companies could return and develop a third hotel under the Hilton banner, Lawson said. The project would dovetail with Front Row Center, an expansive retail and entertainment center that includes the 4,600-seat Clear Channel Stadium, home to the Lancaster JetHawks minor league team, an affiliate of the Arizona Diamondbacks. The hotels will be geared toward fans, out-of-town players and visitors to Lancaster and other areas of the Antelope Valley. It will also be the closest hotels to Edwards Air Force Base and the Antelope Valley Fairgrounds, according to the city. Construction on the hotels could start as soon as 90 days, Lawson said, and wrap within 10 months. Details of the Tuscan-themed center have yet to be hammered out, although the general concept has been approved by the city, he said. The proposed mixed-use project is one of a bumper crop of projects in the high desert city, which for many years was mostly seen as a sleepy agricultural-centered enclave. Today, Lancaster is the fastest growing city in Los Angeles County, with home values up 29.2 percent this year, according to the County Assessor’s office. Hundreds of tract homes are planned, creating entire communities out of the desert. Lawson said the new homes have spawned development of the commercial front. “That residential growth is driving retail growth,” he said. “It’s a boom town. Our whole area has a very, very strong retail market.” Much of that development has centered on Clear Channel Stadium, constructed for $14.5 million a decade ago in part to lure new development to that area of the city. The concept has apparently paid off. A languishing nearby outlet center was redeveloped into Lancaster Market Place in 1999, the same year the $20 million Cinemark 22 movie theater opened on a 19-acre site across from the stadium. Retail has also popped up next door at the Lancaster Power Center, which has a Wal-Mart as its anchor tenant. Brad Seymour, general manager of the JetHawks, said development is at least partially due to the stadium, which draws in 3,000 fans for a typical game. “When the stadium was built in 1996, development was promised. It was always earmarked to take place with the stadium as the cornerstone,” he said. For the team, which brought in its 2 millionth fan last year, the prospect of three new hotels bringing even more ticket-buyers is exciting, he said. Right now, the nearest lodging is about four miles away, he said. “It makes it more of a destination,” Seymour said, adding that more rooms would surely bring in more fans. “It’s a built-in audience literally staying across your parking lot maybe looking for something to do an easy stroll away. It’s ideal for us,” he said. That makes sense to Steve Malicot, president and CEO of the Antelope Valley Chambers of Commerce, who said the area’s growth is possible because Lancaster is one of the few areas in the county in which land is plentiful and the cost to build is moderate. “We have room for growth when, generally speaking, Los Angeles County doesn’t have a whole lot of available land,” he said. “This area is primed for growth.”
