An Orange County home builder branching out into Santa Clarita is building the first phase of Sand Canyon Plaza with land the developer closed escrow on less than two weeks ago, a spokeswoman for the project said Thursday.  Pelona Hills at Sand Canyon will be a multi-entity partnership with Intracorp and Resmark taking the lead on the first phase, comprised of 119 detached single-family homes, Paige Nelson, a spokeswoman for Intracorp, said in a phone interview Thursday.  The address given for the development shows it as about a 1.5-mile drive north on Sand Canyon Road from Sand Canyon Country Club, not far from the Sand Canyon Ranch development, near the intersection of Soledad Canyon Road.  The project broke ground in November, Nelson said, after the community design was approved by the city of Santa Clarita’s Design Review Committee in July 2023. There will be a number of other projects associated with the development, but these homes are the first phase.  “We are eager to bring our expertise and attention to detail to the beautiful Sand Canyon area,” Brad Perozzi, president of Intracorp Southern California, wrote in a statement Thursday. “Our first venture in the Santa Clarita Valley, this new community expands the number of quality projects we have built in Los Angeles County, ranging from apartments and townhomes to luxury high-rise condominiums and single-family detached homes. There is a great need for new housing in L.A. County, and we are grateful to be able to bring these extraordinary homes to these wonderful communities.”   Sand Canyon Plaza originally was approved by the city in October 2017, set to include 580 residential units, 60,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space and an 85,000-square-foot assisted living facility with up to 140 beds.  The plans were first presented in 2014, and hundreds of residents weighed in between then and its ultimate approval, according to previous reports.  The developer on the project is Tom Clark, who’s also leading the effort to develop the former Smiser Mule Ranch as the Wiley Canyon Project.   The developer described the floor plans for its homes as “contemporary California Ranch,” which are expected to range in size from approximately 1,830 to 2,181 square feet and include up to four bedrooms, two and a half baths and a two-car side garage.  A release announcing the project touts “nearby access to major transportation corridors and spectacular 360-degree views of the Santa Clarita Valley and local foothills.”   In addition to the views and freeway access, one of the project’s selling points is its walking-distance location from Oak Spring Canyon Park and the Sand Canyon Village Retail Center, which counts Sprouts Market, Starbucks and Jersey Mike’s among its growing list of tenants.  The project expects to have a formal groundbreaking ceremony later this year, Nelson said, with homes hitting the market sometime in the fourth quarter.  The post First homes for Sand Canyon Plaza underway   appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.