The University of Michigan's Ross School of Business has officially opened a 20,000-square-foot campus in Downtown Los Angeles, cutting the ribbon on a space tucked inside one of the city's most architecturally ambitious developments. The new outpost sits at The Grand LA in the Grand Avenue Arts Corridor, giving the business school a permanent home base in a region with one of its largest alumni populations outside Michigan itself.
University officials held the ribbon-cutting ceremony on September 3, according to MLive.com, marking an expansion of the school's West Coast presence more than a decade after Michigan Ross first launched programs in Los Angeles back in 2012. The new campus includes classrooms, study rooms, collaborative workspaces, and both indoor and outdoor event spaces, and it's built to support the school's Executive MBA program alongside meetings and events for Ross alumni, corporate partners, and the broader university community. Per the Eventective venue listing, the facility packs in 16 private breakout rooms and flexible classrooms with built-in presentation screens, plus event space that can host up to 150 people for conferences and workshops.
The location itself carries a story. The Grand LA is the $1 billion-plus, Frank Gehry-designed mixed-use complex developed by Related Companies — the real estate firm founded by Stephen M. Ross, the University of Michigan alumnus for whom the business school is named, according to the Commercial Observer. Ross earned his bachelor's degree from U-M in 1962 and has since donated $378 million to the university over his lifetime, making him its largest individual donor after the business school was renamed in his honor following a $100 million gift in 2004, per CBS News.
A Campus Built for Cross-Industry Access
Ross School Dean Sharon Matusik said few cities match the energy and global reach of Los Angeles, framing the new campus as a home base to expand academic programming and strengthen community ties across Southern California. The space is designed to position the business school closer to the entertainment, media, technology, finance, real estate, and entrepreneurship industries that define the region's economy, while also providing access to Latin America, Southeast Asia, and other global markets.
Matusik was appointed the Edward J. Frey Dean of the Ross School of Business in August 2022, arriving from the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado Boulder to become just the second female dean in the school's history, according to Poets&Quants. That outlet also ranked the Michigan Ross Executive MBA program 5th among executive MBA programs nationally for 2024-2025, with total program tuition and fees estimated at $186,000 — trailing only Wharton, Kellogg, Booth, and Stern in cost and ranking.
Tapping Into a Deep Alumni Bench
The timing lines up with some striking demographic numbers. California is home to more than 56,000 University of Michigan alumni — the largest U-M alumni population outside the state of Michigan — with over 20,000 living in Southern California and more than 12,000 in Los Angeles specifically, according to the Alumni Association of the University of Michigan. Michigan Ross has said it plans to expand opportunities for students, alumni, faculty, and partners in the Los Angeles community, and university leaders describe the new campus as strengthening the school's reach across the entire western United States.
Broader migration data helps explain why a Midwestern business school would plant a permanent flag on the West Coast. An Upjohn Institute study found that while only 35 percent of University of Michigan graduates remain in greater Detroit, California attracts roughly 6 percent of U-M alumni overall, forming a significant out-of-state talent pipeline toward West Coast tech and business hubs.
Part of a Bigger Downtown LA Build-Out
The Ross campus joins a fast-changing stretch of Downtown LA. The Grand LA complex, which opened in July 2022, includes a 45-story residential tower called The Grand by Gehry with 436 units — 89 of them set aside as affordable housing — plus a 28-story, 305-room Conrad Los Angeles hotel and 164,000 square feet of retail space, all sitting in the Grand Avenue Arts Corridor near MOCA and The Broad. Hoodline previously explored how the complex could remake Downtown LA as it continues to reshape the neighborhood's streetscape and economy.
The University of Michigan Board of Regents formally approved the long-term lease for the campus space at 100 S. Grand Ave. back in September 2024, meaning the project had been in the works for roughly two years before its ribbon-cutting this month. Michigan Ross Executive Education is already lining up its first major programming at the site: a 1.5-day leadership studio called Breaking Through: Leading in an Age of Constant Change is set for October, with an opening experience at DATALAND, the AI art museum that opened inside The Grand LA earlier this year and which Hoodline covered when it debuted.
