The long-quiet Westside Pavilion is on track to swap food courts for microscopes, as UCLA moves ahead with plans to turn the shuttered mall into a sprawling Research Park. A newly released environmental study outlines a mostly adaptive-reuse makeover into roughly 800,000 square feet of labs, offices and common space. Spanning more than nine acres along Pico Boulevard, the project makes room for about 1,100 parking spaces, expanded outdoor amenities and an initial 40,000-square-foot quantum hub in the basement. Construction will roll out in phases, with parts of the complex potentially opening as early as late 2027 and full buildout extending through 2035.
What’s planned inside the park
According to environmental documents from UCLA Capital Programs, the project leans heavily on adaptive reuse, reworking roughly 744,400 gross square feet of existing occupiable floor area and delivering about 800,000 gross square feet of scientific program space across the two existing wings at 10800 and 10850 W. Pico Boulevard. The plan carves out roughly 271,000 square feet for wet and dry laboratories, 214,000 square feet of office space, 52,400 square feet for meeting areas and 258,700 square feet for circulation and back-of-house functions, plus 14,700 square feet of food service and more than 29,000 square feet of outdoor amenities.
Tenants and donors
The California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy is identified in the documents as an anchor tenant. That institute was seeded in part by a $120 million commitment from Dr. Gary Michelson and Alya Michelson, as detailed by the Michelson Medical Research Foundation. UCLA's Quantum Innovation Hub is slated to occupy an initial 40,000 square feet in the basement, with potential expansion to roughly 120,000 square feet, according to UCLA Newsroom.
Design and neighborhood changes
Project plans emphasize reusing the existing shell of the mall, with only limited new construction for a lobby pavilion, conference center, expanded loading areas and a redesigned main entry plaza, as reported by Urbanize LA. Flad Architects is serving as the lead designer, and OBJ is handling landscape architecture for the campus-style conversion. The redesign follows UCLA's 2024 purchase of the shuttered mall from Hudson Pacific Properties, a move first covered by Westside Pavilion Reborn.
Timeline, traffic and public review
Construction and occupancy are set to be phased in. Core and shell work, along with the first tenant build-outs, are expected to begin in 2026, with early occupancies possible by late 2027. The full program could be completed as late as 2035, according to UCLA Capital Programs. The university has opened a 30-day CEQA public review period running from May 4 through June 3, 2026, and will hold a virtual public meeting on May 20 to walk residents through the traffic and mitigation studies and take public comment.
Neighbors and nearby businesses will find the fine print on traffic mitigation and proposed hours of operation in that public review process, and those details will do a lot to determine how the Research Park meshes with surrounding Westside neighborhoods. If ultimately approved, the project would turn a long-empty mall into a dense hub of research and industry partnerships, potentially bringing new jobs and fresh development pressures to the area for years to come.
