- The University of California, Los Angeles, plans to turn a former shopping mall into a research facility.
- The 700,000 square foot facility is located 3.2 miles from the university's Westwood campus.
- Construction of the research center will take just over three years, with an additional two years dedicated to hiring workers.
The University of California, Los Angeles, will transform a vast building that was once a shopping mall into a state-of-the-art center for immunology and quantum science research, Gov. Gavin Newsom and other officials announced Wednesday.
The 700,000-square-foot former Westside Pavilion, located two miles from the university's Westwood campus, will be called UCLA Research Park.
It will also house UCLA's California Institute of Immunology and Immunotherapy, the UCLA Center for Quantum Science and Engineering, and eventually other programs, the governor said. He said it would take just over three years to build the research center and another two years to attract the “best and brightest” to work there.
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“It will serve as a cutting-edge hub for research and innovation, bringing together academics, corporate partners, government agencies and start-ups to explore new areas of research and achieve breakthroughs that can serve the common good. ,” said the UCLA president. Gene Block said at a press conference.
California Governor Gavin Newsom discusses the future UCLA Research Park, planned to be built at the former Westside Pavilion in Los Angeles on January 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Damien Dovarganes)
The shopping mall closed many years ago. In 2019, Google had plans to lease the property and use part of it as office space, but that project never materialized. Google contributed to UCLA's acquisition, the university said in a statement.
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UCLA did not disclose the cost of the purchase, but the joint venture that owned the site, Hudson Pacific Properties and mixed-use real estate firm Macerich, announced that the University of California had acquired the site for $700 million. .
