The Westside Pavilion’s interior closed in 2019
, marking the end of an era for
one of West Los Angeles’ most popular malls that had served shoppers, diners and moviegoers for decades.
The mall’s exterior was featured in the 1995 film Clueless, while its interior appeared in Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin'” music video.
Before opening in 1985, the site was occupied by a mini mall known as Westland and a free-standing May Company building; the mall has been used for music videos and motion pictures.
The mall was constructed at a cost of $90 million and opened on May 31, 1985.
It was designed by architect Jon Jerde, who also designed structures for the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles and is best known for his innovative mall designs.
The interior was designed to evoke the feeling of an open-air European shopping district, with four pavilions linked together by arching skylights and brightly tiled pedestrian avenues.
The mall thrived for decades through the 1990s and early 2000s.
In 2015, Nordstrom announced it would leave the mall for the newly renovated Westfield Century City, located just two miles away, with the move completed in 2017.
On October 27, 2017, it was announced that Macy’s would be closing in March 2018.
Less than a year later, its Macy’s Furniture Gallery followed suit, shutting down in March 2019 as part of a nationwide downsizing effort.
By 2018, it was clear that Westside Pavilion could no longer sustain itself as a retail mall; Macerich, the mall’s owner, announced a joint venture with Hudson Pacific Properties to transform most of the shopping center into office space called One Westside.
The plan centered around a major tenant: Google, which in 2019 signed a 14-year lease to occupy the future office complex.
The 12-screen Landmark Theater multiplex was intended to remain open to the public after the conversion.
Landmark Theatres’ president, Kevin Holloway, said in a statement that the theater would be closing permanently after operating for 15 years in the Westside Pavilion mall.
The Westside Tavern restaurant was also intended to remain, but it closed in October 2020, due to the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the viral moment that defined the mall’s place in pop culture,
Westside Pavilion was used for the establishing shot of the mall that Cher heads to in order to find sanctuary and regain her strength after being brutally rebuffed in her attempts to have Mr. Hall raise her debate grade.
An establishing shot in Clueless makes viewers believe the mall is Westside Pavilion, though the interior is actually that of the Westfield Fashion Square mall in Sherman Oaks.
The mall’s cultural relevance extended beyond the iconic 1995 film.
In recent years, it became a popular filming location for several Fox shows like Modern Family and Fresh Off the Boat.
Following a decline in retail traffic and the closure of major anchors, the mall was repurposed by Hudson Pacific Properties and Google into office space, and finally acquired by UCLA in 2024 to become a major research facility.
The former mall now houses the California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy at UCLA and the UCLA Center for Quantum Science and Engineering.
In 2022, construction began on the mall’s east side to convert it into a modern research park with a $475-million project that takes advantage of the mall’s high ceilings and atrium to bring natural light into the space.