Lightweight jazz is played from invisible speakers, with a turf with a walkway and drought-tolerant bush. The perfect office building puts high-profile Hollywood and tech tenants, including Amazon, Oracle and AMC Network, into idyllic poetry.
On the lawn, some of the newest crew members of the Santa Monica complex, known as the Water Garden, leaned against an Adirondack chair with books in their hands.
Classes are held at Calvary Christian School.
It is one of five schools in the Pacific Palisades area that has moved to the Santa Monica office property (or will soon do so), and after January hell, it destroyed nearly 7,000 buildings and burned 23,000 acres.
Thousands of K-12 students will live in 200,000 square feet of space, positioning the school as an unexpectedly promoting Santa Monica’s office rental market, which, like many others, remains challenged by the massive effects of Covid-19-19. The health crisis cleared the buildings, which later led many companies to move to mixed or completely remote work schedules.
“I’m not doing school rentals on my bingo card this year, but you’re here – you roll with The Times,” said Alex Cameron, Los Angeles Regional Director at BXP, a commercial real estate company.
The Colorado Center is across the street from Water Gardens and is now home to the country school that was destroyed in the Palisades fire.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
Unlike other landlords, Cameron said his company’s development, Colorado Center and Santa Monica Business Park, has few vacancies and requires creative solutions to accommodate new school tenants.
But not every owner of Santa Monica’s approximately 8.4 million square feet office market is lucky: The vacancies rate in the fourth quarter of 2024 was about 31%, compared with about 25% in the same period last year, according to commercial real estate broker JLL.
Jennifer Taylor, Santa Monica’s economic development manager, said the influx of schools “is a great way to reactivate some of our larger business districts and office campuses. It creates this whole new sense of vitality.”
If there is a symbol of market weakness, it is the long former Sears building near the promenade of Third Street. Soon, though, it will meet teenagers: Palisades Charter High School is expected to reopen in late April.
The street before Colorado Center is named one of the few properties in Santa Monica, displaced in the Palisades fire.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
These actions are temporary. For school people who are still dealing with the trauma of the deadly Palisade fire, it is important to return to the classroom quickly. Leaders of the Country School and St. Matthew Parish School (both moved all or part of the school to the end of January, their new homes were different from their new homes and their Palisades campus, but the joyful environment and welcome neighbors made the transition easier.
Country School Principal John Evans said: “It’s better to describe it as a collective victory. Although this move is not without a challenge to the K-6 community: the new space has no permanent interior walls and requires the use of temporary dividers.
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He said companies from other tenants in the Center for Colorado, including Hulu and Roku, have offered to help with the transition. “them [asking]’What can we do for your graduation? Do the kids want to spend their careers here? Evans said. “It’s just overwhelming.”
Save Sears website
Located opposite the Santa Monica Place Mall – amid the historic neon signs, welcome visitors to the Santa Monica Pier, the old Sears building has been vacant for most of a decade.
New York developer Seritage Growth Property controlled Sears and Kmart stores in 2015, and closed the Santa Monica store two years later. The developer then made a $50 million renovation of the property, which was built in 1947 and designated a historic landmark in Santa Monica, turning it into a restaurant or store-backed destination office project.
The upgrade was completed in 2020, just at the time of the pandemic lease, designed to attract a creative industry tenant willing to rent hundreds of thousands of square feet of rent on the West Side at Google and other tech and entertainment companies.
Seritage and its partner Invesco were unable to find the tenant. Pali High then was destroyed by a fire in January. About 30% of campuses have been damaged or destroyed, including some classroom buildings and sports facilities. Need a new home.
On January 21, Pali High High resumed its courses online, but this is always seen as a short-term solution for the school of 2,445 students.
Palisades Charter High School principal Cesar Gomez and principal Pamela Magee visited the former Sears building in Santa Monica on March 13.
(Yamada/Los Angeles Times)
The former Sears site spans 100,000 square feet, which includes a considerable parking lot, making it a rare property for a large student body that can accommodate Pali High, and school leaders intend to stay consistent. Pali High signed up for a six-month leased space lease and has the option to expand the deal; principal Pamela Magee said the cost of renting and construction work that transforms the building into a school would total about $11 million.
Magee said most of the funds come from insurance policies in Bali Heights and must be spent on their relocation. “It’s a ‘use or lose it’ case,” she added.
Seritage did not respond to a request for comment.
Palley High School is scheduled to welcome students to the building on April 22. “These kids are very resilient, even though they are suffering,” Magee said. “I know they want to be together.”
Hopefully this will be a short stop in Santa Monica: Pali High may start the next school year in August, return to its Palisades campus and will hold classes in the “portable village” that gathers on site. But this may take longer.
“Investment due to uncertainty about when to see Palisade as a safe environmental space [in the former Sears site] Guaranteed the school will open in person in Palisades or Sears this fall. ”
A model Pali High Plassoom in the former Sears building in Santa Monica is a table donated by Wework.
(Yamada/Los Angeles Times)
In some ways, the former Sears building may never be like a campus: Unlike the water garden across the street from each other and the Colorado Center, there are few green spots on the highways on 10 highways – saying nothing about grass.
Maggie acknowledged the challenge and said it was something school officials are discussing. “Luckily, Santa Monica has a lot of open space and the city has been easy to help us find locations for external events,” she said.
The old Sears building also offers other benefits. It stands at the terminal of E, formerly an expo, a light rail line, close to many restaurants, shops and other attractions.
Stewart Wilson-Turner’s son Aiden, a sophomore at Pali High, is excited that he will be able to return to in-person learning, but pointing out the possibility of the infamous La Scourge. “I think transportation might be a bitch, my French forgiven,” he said. But “I think the energy will be very good. … It will be very cool to start school there.”
Challenge and “God’s Grace”
Even as the fires in Palisades were raging, Santa Monica municipal officials foresaw this could become a paradise for displaced schools. On January 10, the city council passed an emergency ordinance that allows simplification and speed up the review process for schools.
Roxanne Tanemori, deputy director of the Santa Monica Community Development Department, said the operation allowed some schools to be opened in the city within weeks after the fire.
One of the people who used the emergency rules was St. Matthew (St. Among the people who were personally influenced, was Principal Alley Michaelson. She and her family lived in the property’s residence and were damaged. Even so, she said, St. Matthew’s relocation program was immediately started.
“That was the focus of January 7th afternoon,” said school graduate Michaelson. “Nevertheless, I just knew I had to put my head down and focus on going back to face-to-face learning. I think we learned from Covid-Learning [online] That’s so, it’s hard. ”
Water Gardens has long been home to high-profile media and entertainment tenants, and now there are two schools.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
St. Matthew reopened on January 27 in a 30,000-square-foot space in Water Gardens. The property accommodates third- to eighth grade students from the school – a total of 134. Young children, including preschoolers, are attending classes near a facility on Stoner Avenue. But some of these students will soon be at Water Garden: St. Matthew’s signed a 21,000-square-foot deal on the property. Michaelson said that in the fall, kindergarten-to-season courses will be available to join older students there.
St. Matthew (St.
Amazon executive Yoshitake said the move was an unexpected joy in the dark times: His family’s home was destroyed in the Palisades fire, forcing them to move to West La
“Some of God’s grace happened,” Yoshitake said. “In all this madness, with this very interesting benefit, it brought me closer to my daughter.”
