Santa Monica Place will turn part of its open-air mall into a four-hour wellness festival on August 23, offering pilates, sound baths, breathwork, and free professional portraits as the struggling shopping center keeps searching for ways to fill its empty storefronts. Tickets for Wellness on the Westside cost $40 and include access to fitness classes running from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 395 Santa Monica Place, with attendees required to sign up in advance to reserve a spot in each class.
According to the Santa Monica Daily Press, the event is produced by AI Wellness, a platform described as aimed at educating people about taking ownership of their health, in partnership with Spin PR Group, the firm behind past Santa Monica activations including Mainopoly: A Taste of Main Street, the Santa Monica Pub Crawl and the Off the Hook Seafood Festival. Kim Koury, president of Spin PR Group and co-producer of the event, said Wellness on the Westside will celebrate health, wellness and self-care, per the same report.
A Mall Still Reeling From Anchor Losses
The festival lands at a property still trying to recover from a punishing stretch of financial trouble. Court-appointed receiver Trigild took operational control of the 527,000-square-foot mall in March 2025 after longtime owner Macerich defaulted on a $300 million loan, and the firm hired property manager Prism Places the following month to re-tenant and reposition the site, according to The Real Deal. A Morningstar Credit report from November 2024 cited by the Santa Monica Mirror found the property's valuation had cratered 59%, from $622 million at loan issuance to just $255 million, as tenants departed and foot traffic dropped.
Those departures have been significant. The mall lost anchor tenants Bloomingdale's and ArcLight Cinemas in 2021, leaving 150,000 square feet vacant, and Nordstrom permanently closed its location at 220 Broadway on August 26, 2025, according to the Santa Monica Daily Press. Per the Daily Press coverage, Santa Monica Place is committed to turning around its increasing vacancy rates, and both downtown Santa Monica and the mall itself have seen rising vacancy in recent years. Santa Monica Place's Caroline Mayhew said the mall wants to maintain momentum by hosting events with Spin PR Group to attract local and Santa Monica community members, the Daily Press reported.
Filling Empty Space With Fitness and Flowers
Wellness on the Westside will include pilates, yoga, dance, sound baths, breathwork and stretching, along with light therapy, sports massages, compression therapy and a flower market, per the event details reported by the Daily Press. Food and drink samples will also be available. Dr. Gideon Kwok, co-founder of AI Wellness, said wellness events help educate people about taking better care of themselves, and that the festival can expose attendees to unfamiliar wellness practices, according to the same report. Kwok added that treatments like red light therapy, exosome facials and PEMF therapy can help people see quicker results.
The gathering fits a pattern already underway at the mall, which has leaned on experiential tenants rather than traditional retail to draw people back. Fitness International officially opened a 47,000-square-foot Club Studio location within Santa Monica Place on June 24, 2026, offering boutique fitness studios, cryotherapy and infrared saunas, according to details published by Santa Monica Place. Global dumpling chain Din Tai Fung opened a flagship location on the mall's top deck in February 2025, becoming one of the property's primary remaining anchor attractions.
Portraits Aimed at the 2028 Olympics
Alongside the fitness lineup, the nonprofit public art initiative Community Collage will offer free professional portraits at the event. Community Collage, founded by photographer Josh Madson, is a public art initiative celebrating diverse cultures within local communities, and it aims to photograph 40,000 Angelenos ahead of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, with plans to transform the portraits into murals and installations across Los Angeles for the Games, per the Daily Press. Madson launched the project in Mankato, Minnesota, in January 2023 before expanding it nationwide to capture thousands of black-and-white portraits for community murals, according to MPR News.
The timing is no accident. Santa Monica Place welcomed nearly 4,000 people to a 2026 USA World Cup kickoff celebration earlier this summer, and city leaders have since built a dedicated Major Events Team to coordinate cultural, athletic and wellness programming aimed at capturing economic activity around the World Cup and the 2028 Olympics, according to the Santa Monica Daily Press.
A City Betting on Small Fixes for a Big Problem
The wellness festival is a modest event, but it arrives amid much larger municipal stress. Santa Monica's City Council declared a state of financial distress in September 2025 over a $229 million legal settlement and declining tax revenues, while retail vacancy on the adjacent Third Street Promenade reached 30% by April 2026, according to the Santa Monica Daily Press. In March 2026, the City Council approved an economic package eliminating a $1,000-per-seat wastewater fee for restaurants, adding $3 million in business recruitment incentives and expanding open-container entertainment zones downtown, the paper reported.
The city also opened a police substation inside Santa Monica Place in late 2025 as part of an emergency recovery push that doubled downtown patrols, a step Hoodline previously reported was meant to reassure wary retail tenants. Michelle Kelly, owner of Restore Hyper Wellness, and Jeff Wills, owner of BOD (Body Overview Data) in Venice, are among the wellness businesses tied to the event lineup, per the Daily Press. Santa Monica Place offers a venue for local brands and low-cost community events, and organizers say Wellness on the Westside aims to promote wellness education and bring the community together — one more small-scale bet in a much larger effort to keep the mall relevant before the Olympics arrive.
