UCLA to turn former Westside Pavilion into centers for research on immunology and quantum science

WESTSIDE LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- UCLA will turn a sprawling former shopping mall into cutting-edge centers for immunology and quantum science research, Gov. Gavin Newsom and other officials announced Wednesday.

The 700,000-square-foot former Westside Pavilion, located 2 miles from the university's Westwood campus, will be called UCLA Research Park.

It will house the California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy at UCLA, the UCLA Center for Quantum Science and Engineering, and eventually other programs, the governor said. He said it will take a little over three years to build out the research center and another two years to attract "the best and the brightest" to work there.

"It will serve as a state-of-the-art hub of research and innovation that will bring together academics, corporate partners, government agencies and startups to explore new areas of inquiry and achieve breakthroughs that could serve the common good," UCLA Chancellor Gene Block told a news conference.

The mall shut down years ago. In 2019, Google leased the property and planned to use part of it for office space, a project that never came about. Google helped enable UCLA's acquisition, the university said in a statement.

"In the next couple of years we're going to see machines that could do things that could never be done on any conceivable classical machine," said Eric Hudson, Ph.D., a physics researcher at UCLA. "And that's when the fun's really going to start."

UCLA did not disclose the cost of the purchase, but Hudson Pacific Properties and the Macerich mixed-use real estate company, which were in a joint venture that owned the location, said it was acquired by the University of California for $700 million.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.