Westside Neighborhood School held classes at its new 5340 Alla Road campus for the first time on September 10, marking the culmination of a real estate deal that let the Playa Vista institution buy a five-acre, 132,000-square-foot property for a fraction of its market value. The developmental kindergarten through eighth-grade school, which serves roughly 630 students, celebrated the milestone with a ribbon-cutting, open house and block party on September 4.
The new campus is twice the size of the school's former leased facilities on Beethoven Street, which totaled approximately 66,000 square feet, according to the Westside Current. The financing account comes from an HJ Sims case study, which says the school acquired the property for under $50 million, below an estimated $100 million market valuation, and financed the purchase and buildout with a $90 million tax-exempt bond issue. The case study also says investor purchase offers in 2024 exceeded the target by ten times.
A Long Road From Leased Space To Ownership
The school advanced its permanent-campus project in 2023 and secured both financing and a conditional-use permit the following year, with construction beginning in 2025. Westside Neighborhood School invested roughly $90 million in acquiring and transforming the property, consolidating classrooms previously spread across three leased buildings on Beethoven Street. The new property is roughly 700 feet from the current campus, according to an informational guide published by the school and cited in the HJ Sims report. The school's North Campus on Coral Tree Place will continue housing early childhood and STEM centers, and the preschool program will remain at the existing early childhood center.
Head of School Brad Zacuto called the opening a defining chapter for the institution, saying the new campus secures a permanent home for future generations and expands what is possible for students. Ownership of the site, rather than tenant status, gives the school greater flexibility to shape classrooms and shared spaces going forward.
Bond Financing Comes With A Credit Warning
The move from rented space to full ownership wasn't cheap to finance, and independent credit analysts have flagged the risk that comes with it. S&P Global Ratings affirmed a BB long-term credit rating with a stable outlook for the Series 2024 bonds issued for the school, citing high leverage and projected near-term operational deficits — even as it pointed to steady enrollment demand as a mitigating factor.
That leverage shows up in the school's own books. IRS Form 990 tax records compiled by ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer show Westside Neighborhood School generated $35.7 million in total revenue against $37.1 million in expenses for the fiscal year ending June 2025, while carrying $128 million in total assets.
What Public Records Can Show
For readers assessing the risks and transparency of large nonprofit-school campus financings, the California State Treasurer's Office says the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board's EMMA system is the official repository for information on virtually all municipal bonds and provides public access to continuing-disclosure documents, according to the California State Treasurer's Office. Those records provide a public source for reviewing disclosures associated with bond financing.
For comparisons beyond this school, California Department of Education private-school data files provide school-level information on enrollment, enrollment by grade, graduates, staffing and tax-exempt status. The data can help readers compare independent-school size over time, but the resource alone does not establish a broader Los Angeles trend in enrollment or campus expansion.
New Amenities Fill Out The Alla Road Site
The Alla Road campus includes an athletic complex with a soccer field, gymnasium, outdoor courts and a golf simulator, along with spaces for visual arts, dance, theater, robotics, fabrication, science and multimedia learning. Classrooms for developmental kindergarten through third grade include floor-to-ceiling windows and patios designed for outdoor learning, and the school plans to launch an early preschool program for toddlers in January 2027.
Westside Neighborhood School draws students from more than 50 zip codes across Los Angeles, according to the Westside Current, and it currently serves about 630 students. The school's admissions office states it allocates more than $4 million annually in need-based financial aid to help offset those costs for qualifying families.
Decades In The Making
The permanent campus caps a journey that began in 1980, when the school was founded as Westchester Neighborhood School directly beneath the flight path of aircraft landing at LAX. The school relocated to Playa Vista in 2005 before finally settling into ownership at Alla Road two decades later.
WNS's institutional profile references educational associations, and available listings do not provide demographic percentages.
Open questions remain about how the school will manage its bond repayment obligations in coming fiscal cycles and whether the expanded campus could eventually push enrollment beyond its current level of about 630 students — details that neither the school nor S&P Global Ratings has yet addressed publicly.
