UCLA will transform dead Westside mall into major science innovation center | Hacker News Reader

UCLA will transform dead Westside mall into major science innovation center

latimes.com

36 pointspseudolus18 comments

The mall in my hometown isn't dead yet, but the flagship stores are all gone. Biggest things that have moved in are a Rural King and a Planet Fitness, and the former Macy's may turn into a casino depending on an ongoing court case over it. We'll likely see more of this type of project as mall businesses continue to dry up.

Austin Community College previously turned one into their Highland campus.

https://www.austincc.edu/campuses/highland-campus

I have to say I went to a New Year’s party in that mall right before ACC took it over and I feel like you could’ve had two more campuses in there

Also, hi Will! Glad to see other quizbowl people on here

Someone I know? I did join in for KMO once or twice, and TSA's technology bowl, but otherwise quizbowl was more my brother's thing.

Oh you might be right.

I should add the craziest thing, Auntie Anne’s pretzels has moved out of said mall to a location downtown.

RIP malls.

I heard pre-pandemic, Google was going to purchase that space. Guess that deal fell through with remote work.

Pre-COVID19 pandemic, when the plans to develop and open part of the Westside Pavillion as a Google office was shared with employees, many of the engineers based out of the Los Angeles (Venice) office declared their preference to quit and find another job elsewhere. This was because Google was planning to close the crowded Venice Office (Binoculars Building) and reassign those employees to the new Westside Pavillion office.

Which is weird because it is a lot easier to get to BH from the Valley compared to Venice.

And, if you are well to do google employee why live in a shack in Venice when you could have a large house in the Valley?

They are rich enough to live in Manhattan Beach and Hermosa.

Many Googlers live on the LA Westside (Santa Monica, Venice, West LA, Culver City, Playa Vista), often close enough to bike to work.

Or as the other poster said, the South Bay Beach Cities. However the beach cities are almost 1hr driving to/from the Venice Office. It's often more than 1hr to/from the beach cities to the Westside Pavillion.

There are a myriad of reasons why living in a LA beach city is preferable to the SFV. The beach is there. The weather is better. You’re closer to LAX.

BTW, Google also modified an existing ex-mall in northern CA, Mayfield Mall for the Google X offices (https://x.company/blog/posts/from-mall-to-moonshot-factory:-...

I've worked with a fair number of people who walked in, thought it seemed familiar, and then realized they had gone there as kids.

$700 million seems like a lot of money for this. Hopefully this will succeed. Zombie malls are such a plague in many municipalities. The local jurisdiction needs to start imposing vacancy taxes and deadlines to fill them. Beyond that, turn them over for affordable housing structures.

Malls can't really be turned into affordable housing without significantly changing codes for housing, at least pretty much everywhere in the US.

Many municipalities seem more than happy to change zoning for certain types of housing, and these malls are rarely that close to the enclaves of wealthy NIMBYs.

I'm not taking about zoning, though that's certainly an issue too. I'm talking about requirements for windows and egress and such for residences that make it difficult to convert large buildings constructed for other purposes into multi-tenant residential complexes.

A relative of mine has been providentially positioned to earn a king's ransom due to mall closings. He works with a demolition company, and I believe he used to do manual labor, but these days all he does is paperwork and "job walks" where he visits the site to measure and make estimates for the company's bids.

It's absolutely fantastic work where he's in the right business at the right time in this economy. The death knell of every mall means another paycheck for him, and steady business in that industry.

Plus he gets perks like cast-off furniture. My parents scored a whole inventory of LuluLemon's cabinets and shelves when they closed up shop.

https://archive.is/D97Ez

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