A Store Is High on a City's List : Santa Clarita: While crime, transit and other problems concern civic leaders, luring a Nordstrom's is one of their big goals.

A Store Is High on a City’s List : Santa Clarita: While crime, transit and other problems concern civic leaders, luring a Nordstrom’s is one of their big goals.

By HENRY CHU

July 11, 1991 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

While many Southern California cities glumly look ahead to spiraling crime rates, worsening air pollution and ever more congested streets, Santa Clarita residents have drafted a list of issues and goals to improve their future.

And at the top of a wish list, drafted by more than 100 residents and city officials, is the construction of a Nordstrom department store. That’s if everything “goes beyond the community’s wildest dreams,” according to the report.

To be sure, solutions to crime, transit and other problems appear on the list. And so does persuading Al Davis to move the Raiders to this city 35 miles north of downtown Los Angeles.

But when sorted out in a three-year plan approved by the City Council on Tuesday, luring Nordstrom to set up shop at a new mall beats out issues such as school overcrowding, air quality--and tackling the Raiders.

“The people want it. It’s in the action plan,” said real estate appraiser Scott Voltz, 29, who participated in the planning sessions. “You don’t see Bullock’s or Robinson’s in there. Nordstrom has come to symbolize quality, service and a pleasing shopping environment.”

The fledgling city has gone public with a number of quirky ideas since its incorporation three years ago. Councilwoman and animal lover Jan Heidt once proposed banning the sale of veal in the city. Mayor Carl Boyer III believes that the existing address system is too complicated and once suggested that every address in the city be changed. After council debate, Heidt dropped her proposal and Boyer’s was rejected.

The Nordstrom factor has been in the air since last September, when the council approved a $180-million mall at the freeway-close intersection of Valencia Boulevard and McBean Parkway. The idea resurfaced strongly at the April planning sessions.

“When they got talking about economic development at the strategy session, some of them said: We want a Nordstrom, and the cry went out,” said Councilwoman JoAnne Darcy.

Added the city’s economic development coordinator, Michael Haviland: “It’s not to be taken lightly. The people that shop at Nordstrom live here in our city. It’s a real prize to have them in your market area.”

The Santa Clarita market boasts a median household income of $44,825 and a median age of 30.3, making the city a prime target for retailers, Haviland said.

The 1.4-million-square-foot mall is scheduled to open in the fall of next year with a May Co., J.C. Penney and Sears. City officials hope Nordstrom will follow suit by 1994.

A spokeswoman at the Nordstrom corporate office in Seattle said a proposal had been received for a Santa Clarita site but that no negotiations have taken place.

“This area is fairly affluent. They could support it,” Darcy said.

Some residents disagree.

“I moved from Woodland Hills. I was about two miles away from where they had a Nordstrom. . . . We don’t need upscale, yuppie status symbols,” said Margi Colette, 50. “But I wanted a less congested area to live in. And I wanted cleaner air.”