A Last Resort?

Developer Steve Kim has a vision: He wants to transform his golf course in Santa Clarita, Sand Canyon Country Club, into the Sand Canyon Hotel and Resort. The development, located at 27734 Sand Canyon Road, would feature 392 hotel suites, villas, ballrooms, restaurants, swimming pools, seven tennis courts, 12 pickleball courts, a kid’s park and arcade and plus access to neighboring horse trails. Kim likened it to a smaller version of Terranea Resort in Rancho Palos Verdes. “This is amazing news for people in Los Angeles,” Kim told the Business Journal during a phone call from his home in Korea. “Traffic is so bad in L.A. – it’s great news for everybody.” However, not everyone shares Kim’s enthusiasm. According to Planning, Marketing & Economic Development Manager for the City of Santa Clarita Jason Crawford, sentiment among the locals has been divided. “We do understand there are groups supportive of the proposal and there are also large groups opposed,” Crawford told the Business Journal. Kim believes that the development — his first — will “put Santa Clarita on the map” and increase local real estate value, and others are siding with Stop Sand Canyon Resort Task Force, a group of locals recently formed to thwart Kim’s development plans because of the perceived havoc it could bring. Alex Guerrero, the leader of Stop Sand Canyon Resort Task Force, said he is not anti-development. A former head of VEDC, the Sand Canyon resident created a successful business, Tower General Contractors, which serviced Lockheed, the Theme Building at LAX, and studios such as Columbia Pictures before he sold his company. Guerrero and his colleagues on the task force want the city to honor the 1996 decision by the Santa Clarita City Council to set aside 300 acres in perpetuity for open space. At the time, the golf club was called Robinson Ranch Golf Course. “A promise made should be a promise kept,” Guerrero said. After all, he said, Sand Canyon was designated a special standards district in 1992 by the city of Santa Clarita, meaning the area must maintain its rural, equestrian charm. “We all moved to Sand Canyon for a reason,” Guerrero said, “and that is the open space.” Kim does not buy into the idea that his resort will add to the congestion. “Our traffic patterns are very different, it’s during the day,” Kim said. According to Crawford, “That property was required to be open space in perpetuity as part of the previous City Council approval of the residential development there. … The current owner is requesting to do a zone change and general plan amendment to put the resort there.” That would require City Council approval. However, the project is currently waiting results of an environmental impact report, which will be released for public review upon completion. Based on those results, the project may go before the Planning Commission for recommendation before going forward to the City Council for a decision. “We do not have a timeline exactly when that’ll happen because they’re working on all of the technical aspects for the EIR,” Crawford said. “We plan on letting the Planning Committee know that their predecessors made a commitment to open space,” Guerrero said. ‘Billionaire developer’ According to Korea Daily U.S. report, Kim has become a multibillionaire from technology endeavors, yet he grew up a pauper in Seoul after his father’s publishing business went bankrupt. As the legend goes, Kim came to the United States in 1976 with $2,000 when he was 26, earned a master’s degree in electrical engineering at California State University – Los Angeles, and, in 1984, launched Fibermux Corp., a fiber-optic data networking company, with an initial stake of $100,000. When ADC Corp. bought Fibermux in 1991, the company had $50 million in revenues and more than 300 employees. In 1993, Kim started Xylan Corp., which made PizzaSwitch network switches. Kim returned to his native Seoul with his wife and three teens in 2007 after selling Xylan to French telecommunications giant Alcatel for $2 billion. When asked to express his gut feeling about Kim following a town hall meeting, the task force’s Guerrero said, “I think we have a billionaire developer who has been able to do whatever he did whenever he wanted and now he has a whole community standing up to his plans.” Guerrero said there are about 13 core members of his task force and 27 total. They include resident lawyers, zoning experts and traffic experts – “people who know (the local dynamics) and what our rights are.” According to Kim, the country club has lost $1 million a year. Originally opened as Robinson Ranch Golf Club on 400 acres in 2000, Sand Canyon Country Club was originally named after golf architects Ted Robinson Sr. and Ted Robinson Jr., the designers of two 18-hole courses on the property. Kim got involved as part of an investment group that owned 20 percent of the property. By April of 2016, he bought out the remaining 80 percent. A year later, he renamed it Sand Canyon Country Club and, soon after, unveiled his ambitious plans. Kim believes that the golf club never recovered from recent years of severe drought coupled with the aftermath of the Great Recession. “The condition was really bad,” Kim recalled. “We were losing a lot of money and I was one of the investors.” There’s also a generational monkey wrench gumming up the works. “About 50 to 60 percent of golfers (have disappeared),” he said. “Young people don’t play anymore.” Safety question In addition to traffic and noise, Guerrero said his chief concerns revolve around safety. He noted how the area in recent years has been struck by four disasters — twice by fire, twice with flooding — and the amount of staff and guests the new resort would invite would “double the population” of Sand Canyon’s 2,500 residents, he said. “We’re concerned about evacuations.” In an article posted on KHTS radio station’s website, a Sand Canyon resident expressed concern over the fact that the road leading into Sand Canyon is only two lanes. “During the Sand Fire, we were trapped,” the local told the media outlet. “With people trying to evacuate, and firefighters coming in, it shuts down the whole canyon.” “Our canyon was not designed with a huge resort in mind,” Guerrero added. “We will fight this to preserve our way of life.” Kim told the Business Journal that in the event of a fire, resort guests would pack and leave, and the golf course would act as a natural fire break. “If you didn’t have the golf course, it would burn all the way through,” he said. Guerrero questions whether planting a resort in the middle of this area would even work at all and appears wary of what a re-zoning could usher in afterwards. “Who would want to go on a vacation to Sand Canyon?” Guerrero said. “What if it fails? With a zone change, it can be opened up to anything if you change it from open space to community commercial.” Nearby construction The project’s opponents, including Guerrero, feel Kim’s proposed resort could threaten the peace and local charm with more development. However, more development has already been taking place, with projects such as Vista Canyon with 1,000 residential units and Sand Canyon Plaza with 580 units already underway. Kim, who believes that his resort will only add value to local real estate while creating new jobs, feels confident the City Council will favor his endeavor as an economic stimulator. At the City Council meeting in September, City Manager Ken Striplin assured attendees that there will be public hearings and opportunity for community input before the Council determines the future and the nature of the project. Councilman Bob Kellar, whose term ends in 2020, had yet to make up his mind but believed such a resort could be “a very positive amenity” to the area. Kim said he would like to see his project break ground in spring 2020. Phase I will see the hotel and amenities, including reopening nine holes of the golf club’s Mountain Course for a total of 27 holes; while Phase II would add the suites and villas. The entire complex would be complete by 2023. However, as the city’s Crawford noted, no decisions will be made before the testing is completed. “Nothing is certain one way or another,” he said.