Tejon Ranch Co. Plans New Community

LOS ANGELES, CA-Tejon Ranch Co. and three prominent builders have filed plans with Los Angeles County for a new community called Centennial that would be built on 11,700 acres of the 270,000-acre Tejon Ranch north of Los Angeles on the Kern County border.

The new community would include commercial and retail development, schools, libraries, entertainment centers and medical facilities along with 23,000 homes. The site is about 60 miles north of Los Angeles on the Kern County border near the junction of Interstate 5 and Highway 138.

Bob Stine, CEO of Tejon Ranch, says the new town will require the partners to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in infrastructure to plan and build schools, roads, parks, and other development.

Tejon and its partners have formed a joint venture called Centennial Founders. Besides Tejon Ranch Co., the partners are Lewis Investment Co., Pardee Homes and Standard Pacific Homes.

Development at Centennial will be confined to 6,000 acres of relatively flat land used for grazing by Tejon Ranch over the past 100 years. About half of the site, 5,700 acres, will be set aside as permanent open space. About 80% of the open space will remain as it looks today while the rest will be woven throughout the community in parks, bikeways, trails and recreation areas.

Centennial would be the latest in a series of developments at Tejon Ranch, which already has started development of its Tejon Industrial Complex. The industrial complex has attracted a number of large companies building huge warehouses, including furniture retailer IKEA and computer products distributor Daisytek International, along with a Best Western Liberty Inn that opened this summer. The 4,000-acre industrial complex is planed for nearly 5 million sf on 350 acres in its first phase.

The filing of plans with Los Angeles County for Tejon’s new residential and commercial community is the first step in a planning, environmental, government and public review process, the company says. The next step, the developers say, will be an environmental impact report. The company estimates planning for the new community will require two or three years and will be built in phases over 25 years.