The same mall where Tom Petty crooned the lyrics to Free Fallin’ and 1995 Clueless’s Cher donned a pastel-green minidress will be repurposed to facilitate groundbreaking research on biosciences, quantum science, and engineering. In Los Angeles, the Westside Pavilion will be transformed into a new UCLA Research Park, located two miles from the university’s Westwood campus. Architecture firm Flad will serve as executive architect for the phased adaptive reuse master plan.
The Westside Pavilion, designed by architect Jon Jerde, dates back to 1985, smack dab in the middle of the golden era of the American indoor mall. Starting in the early 21st century, the mall began to lose significant business; a Los Angeles Times article declared the mall “eerily quiet” in 2018.
The same year, Hudson Pacific Properties obtained the site. Initially intended to serve as a campus for Google, the real estate investment trust updated the mall’s infrastructure and conducted a seismic retrofit, as well as adding window walls, concrete building facades, courtyards, and outdoor areas.
In January 2024, UCLA acquired the building from Hudson Pacific Properties and Macerich using funding from a $500 million investment from the state of California. Additional contributors include a consortium of founding donors from the biotechnology, academic, entrepreneurship and philanthropic communities: Meyer Luskin, Dr. Gary Michelson, Dr. Eric Esrailian, Dr. Arie Belldegrun, Sean Parke, and Michael Milken, among others.
The Research Park will host the California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy at UCLA and the UCLA Center for Quantum Science and Engineering. Within the new building, researchers will explore new treatments for health-related issues: cancer, autoimmune and immune deficiency disorders, infectious diseases.
Flad’s design will incorporate the existing metal and glass facade, 17-foot ceilings, and expansive windows from Hudson Pacific’s renovation. The three-story, 700,000-square-foot building will be repurposed into a variety of research-oriented facilities—laboratories, event spaces, offices, and classrooms. The mall’s 12-screen cinema will be utilized as lecture halls. It sits squarely between the southeast and southwest corners of Pico Boulevard and will be linked via a covered pedestrian bridge crossing Westwood Boulevard.
The UCLA Research Park project fits neatly within the university’s scheme to expand the campus through adaptive reuse and sustainable development. The project offers an alternative to initiating large-scale, intrusive construction projects on campus. It is expected to be completed in May 2027.
