Anaheim is getting its own slice of Tokyo's immersive art empire. TeamLab, the Japan-born collective behind some of the world's most Instagrammed walk-through light installations, plans to open its first permanent museum in the United States inside OCVIBE, the sprawling entertainment district rising near Honda Center, with an estimated 2030 opening.
A $100 Million-Plus Deal Near the Freeway
The museum will occupy a roughly 110,000-square-foot building designed to be very visible from the freeway, according to a press release distributed via PR Newswire. Architecture firm smith-clementi is designing the building, while LPA is serving as architect of record and working directly with teamLab on the exhibitions themselves. Separately, Bloomberg reported that teamLab struck a deal worth more than $100 million to bring its first permanent US location to the site.
TeamLab, which started in Tokyo in 2001, already operates permanent locations in Japan, China and Saudi Arabia. Its exhibits are built around the idea that visitors themselves complete the art: the installations change with the presence of people, making them an integral part of the art itself, per the same press materials. Founder Toshiyuki Inoko is listed among the collective's leaders behind the Anaheim project.
Part of a Much Bigger Buildout
The teamLab museum is just one piece of OCVIBE, a 100-acre district under construction in the heart of Orange County that the press release describes as privately funded with a $5 billion commitment by the Samueli Family — though the City of Anaheim's own 2024 announcement had previously referred to it as a $4 billion project underway around Honda Center, a discrepancy that hasn't been reconciled in available records. OCVIBE is being developed by Anaheim Real Estate Partners LLC, a company tied to Anaheim Ducks owners and Honda Center operators Henry and Susan Samueli.
When finished, OCVIBE is planned to bring 20 acres of open space, three miles of connected walking trails, more than 2,000 residences, over 35 dining experiences and three entertainment venues to the area, with full completion expected in 2033. The district will roll out in phases, with the first phase slated to begin opening in early 2027 — including a 5,000-person concert hall scheduled to debut that March.
Anaheim Leans Into Its Tourism Boom
The timing lines up with a banner stretch for Anaheim's visitor economy. The city welcomed a record 26.5 million visitors in 2025, generating $6.8 billion in visitor spending and a total economic impact of $10.4 billion, according to Visit Anaheim. That tourism activity also supported 67,817 jobs and generated $970 million in state and local taxes last year, the tourism bureau said. Visit Anaheim has pointed to travelers increasingly seeking destinations where something is always happening, and it named OCVIBE alongside DisneylandForward and the Honda Center transformation as investments positioning the city for sustained growth.
TeamLab's track record elsewhere suggests why Anaheim officials see the museum as a draw. The collective's teamLab Planets museum welcomed more than 2.5 million visitors in 2024 and holds the Guinness World Record for most visited art museum by a single group that same year. TeamLab has also brought its work stateside before, presenting Every Living Thing: Animals in Japanese Art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, according to teamLab's own exhibition listings.
The Anaheim location sits roughly three miles from Disneyland, which itself draws more than 17 million people to the area, a proximity that reporting from the Los Angeles Times noted as the newest entry in a growing list of experiential attractions eyeing Southern California, alongside Meow Wolf and Museum of Ice Cream exhibitions reportedly on the horizon for the region.
