New Santa Clarita Courthouse
Project Info
The Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles - New Santa Clarita Courthouse project provides a new 24-courtroom courthouse of approximately 278,000 square feet in the city of Santa Clarita. It includes secured parking for judicial officers and surface parking spaces. The project will require acquisition of a site of approximately 4.53 acres. It will consolidate the court’s operations/courtrooms currently in the Santa Clarita Courthouse, Santa Clarita Administrative Center, and Sylmar Juvenile Courthouse, and owing to deficiencies in these existing facilities, allow redeployment of filings/caseload from Santa Clarita that are currently being processed at other courthouses. The project will use the Design-build delivery method.
Background
Los Angeles County is served by numerous superior court facilities located throughout the county. To provide service countywide, the Superior Court of Los Angeles County is divided into 12 geographic service districts—Central, East, West, North, North Central, North Valley, Northeast, Northwest, South, South Central, Southeast, and Southwest—with full-service operations in all litigation types, except for juvenile dependency, probate, and mental health, in each district. Administrative functions and certain civil case types are centralized and headquartered in the Central District in the civic center of downtown Los Angeles. Each district should have the capacity to address the caseload that originates in that district (but allowing for the extra burdens placed on the Central District for certain cases countywide).
The North Valley District is one of two northernmost districts of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, extending up and out of the city’s urban core into the rural areas north of the San Fernando Valley near Ventura and Kern counties. Santa Clarita is the largest city in the North Valley District and the third largest in Los Angeles County. Much smaller are the city of San Fernando and the city of Los Angeles’ suburban neighborhoods of Chatsworth and Sylmar. The North Valley District provides service as follows: Santa Clarita (criminal matters), Sylmar (juvenile justice matters), San Fernando (civil, criminal, and traffic matters), and Chatsworth (civil, family law, traffic, unlawful detainers, and small claims matters).
The new courthouse project will consolidate North Valley District court operations/courtrooms currently in the county-owned Santa Clarita Courthouse, Santa Clarita Administrative Center, and Sylmar Juvenile Courthouse. The facilities are substantially out of compliance with regulatory safety, seismic, accessibility codes, and Judicial Council space standards. Among their significant functional issues are their space shortfall, overcrowding, security deficiencies, lack of holding facilities, and no path of circulation for in-custody defendants separate from the public and judicial officers and staff. The project will also allow redeployment of Santa Clarita filings/caseload—currently processed at other North Valley and Central District courthouses—back to their original Santa Clarita jurisdiction. This redeployment will aid in the court’s goal of providing all case types and services in Santa Clarita as a full-service justice hub, which is needed to replace the court’s space in the existing Santa Clarita and Sylmar facilities for addressing the district’s rapid population growth.
For this project, acquisition will be required of site of approximately 4.53 acres in the city of Santa Clarita.
The New Santa Clarita Courthouse will accomplish the following immediately needed improvements to the superior court and enhance its ability to serve the public:
• Provide a modern, accessible, safe, and efficient courthouse with an adequate number of courtrooms to serve the city of Santa Clarita.
• Provide a full-service justice hub for the North Valley District—the fastest growing region of Los Angeles County.
• Enhance the public’s access to justice by consolidating court operations and services, relieving the current space shortfall, increasing security, and replacing the court’s space in an inadequate and obsolete buildings.
• Allow the court to operate in a facility with adequate space for greater functionality than in current conditions in multiple locations, including adequate visitor security entrance screening and queuing; safe and secure internal circulation maintaining separate zones for the public, staff, and in- custody defendants; adequate spaces for jury deliberation and jury assembly with capacity for typical jury pools; adequately sized spaces for the clerk’s office, self-help, and family court services; and a facility with ADA accessible spaces and dependable physical infrastructure.
• Realize court operational efficiencies from improved space adjacencies through consolidation of operations and services for improved public service.
• Remove the existing Santa Clarita and Sylmar Juvenile courthouses from service, which are rated as Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) P-154 High-Risk seismically deficient buildings.
• Avoid substantial deferred maintenance and security system refresh expenditures.
This project is in the Immediate Need priority group and consequently is one of the highest priority trial court capital-outlay projects for the judicial branch.
CEQA
Pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act (“CEQA”), the Judicial Council of California is required to analyze the potential environmental impacts of each of its proposed projects. California’s environmental review process under CEQA provides an opportunity for interested parties, government agencies, California Native American Tribes, environmental non-governmental organizations, and members of the public to participate in the CEQA process.
CEQA documents for this project are available via the links below.
The Judicial Council conducted a public scoping meeting on Wednesday, November 12, 2025, from 5:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. at the following location:
The Centre (Oak Room)
20880 Centre Point Parkway
Santa Clarita, CA 91350
Schedule
This project is currently in the Acquisition phase.
Construction is estimated to begin in June 2029 and complete in July 2032.