On Aug. 15, twenty months after the Pacific Palisades wildfire, which destroyed more than 5,000 homes and displaced tens of thousands of residents, the L.A. neighborhood’s signature luxury shopping center will reopen. Palisades Village, a buzzy nexus for A-list Hollywood talent and top executives since it debuted in 2018, will return with both legacy tenants — like industry scion Jennifer Meyer’s jewelry business and the Netflix-run Bay Theatre — and newcomers including an Italian chophouse from legendary chef Nancy Silverton and a New American grill run by the James Beard Award-winning Timothy Hollingsworth.

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“This is one chapter of the comeback story of the Palisades,” says billionaire L.A. real estate developer Rick Caruso, the Village’s owner. “When you look historically on any areas that have gone through a devastation as horrific as this one, the things that are the most important to rebuilding are the places where community has gathered. It’s where routine is comforting. Your school, your church, your synagogue, your park, your shopping district.”

Caruso adds of the reopening, “This was very personal to me. My daughter lost her home [in the fire]. My son lost his home. My wife and I lost a family home. It’s devastating. It rips your heart out. It’s a grieving process. I see it with my kids. I know it with me and my wife. You need things that are tangible to hold onto. This is tangible.”

The Village, which survived the disaster even as much of the rest of the surrounding downtown commercial corridor was devastated, has undergone an extensive restoration. “It’s important to us that we took every step necessary and beyond to ensure that it was clean and safe, that there were no more toxins — that it’s as clean and safe as the day we built it,” Caruso explains. “We took everything down to the studs and rebuilt it after having environmental engineers test it.”

A veteran of several local government commissions, who established a public-private recovery-oriented partnership in the wake of the wildfires, Caruso is regarded as a leading civic figure and poured more than $100 million of his personal wealth into a failed 2022 L.A. mayoral run. He’s since been an outspoken critic of current mayor Karen Bass’s record running the city, including her handling of the wildfire — although he didn’t support the recent ill-fated mayoral bid of the online influencer and former reality TV fixture Spencer Pratt, a fellow Republican who lost his own Palisades home in the disaster.

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Caruso, who recently announced the purchase of a Jack Nicklaus–designed private golf course in Thousand Oaks, notes that his firm invested in public street improvements along Sunset Blvd. just beyond his own property boundary. These include redone sidewalks, new streetlamps and added greenery. “You want to pull onto Sunset and see a charming, beautiful block,” he says, explaining that within the Village itself he’s also substantially increased foliage, “so when you’re on the interior of the space, you’re surrounded by a lot of landscaping,” which obscures views of barren and under-construction nearby residential and commercial lots. “That’s intentional. People want to feel happy when they’re here. They want to be in a space that doesn’t feel like it’s burnt-out.”

For Caruso, the Village’s reopening ahead of the return of the bulk of Palisadians — many homeowners are in the throes of financing, permitting and reconstruction — is a test. “The business model we use, and most [developers] use, is you follow the density, not lead it,” he says, observing that the Village has lost about 30 percent of its customer base due to displacement. (A substantial portion of its visitors before the fire, according to Caruso’s data, were drawn from a swath of neighboring high-income areas that span Malibu and Beverly Hills to Calabasas.)

Like many who lived and worked in the Palisades, Caruso has mixed feelings about how it will change in the aftermath of the fire. “One of the most beautiful things about the Palisades is it was multi-generational,” he says. “There were people living there in the original one-story cottage homes. You had grandparents, parents and grandkids. There will be less of that, which is unfortunate. A lot of people who were there for 40 or 50 years don’t want to take the time to rebuild — or financially they just can’t. But it’s also going to be a town that’s brand-new. It’s remarkable. I think it’s going to be one of the most sought-after, desirable communities in the United States.”

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