Crowds streamed into Palisades Village on Saturday morning, where families with young children ate ice cream, shoppers carried bags and lines formed outside stores as the shopping center reopened 19 months after the Palisades fire.
Across the street, the charred frames of buildings destroyed in the fire still stood, a stark contrast to the bustle inside the Village, where shops welcomed visitors back with opening-day promotions and give-aways.
For Genevieve Bostic, whose family lost its home in Alphabet Streets, a neighborhood near the Palisades Village that was heavily damaged in the January 2025 fire, walking into the Village again brought an unexpected rush of emotions.
“When we first came up the escalators, I started crying, because it felt like exactly it did prefire,” Bostic said. “It’s phenomenal.”
The reopening marks one of the most visible signs of commercial recovery in Pacific Palisades, even as many residents remained displaced, homes and schools are still being rebuilt and portions of the neighborhood still bear the scars of the fire.
Palisades Village, which survived the flames but closed after the fires, reopened with a morning ribbon cutting attended by residents, business owners and community leaders. Shops and restaurants opened at 11 a.m., drawing large crowds throughout the property.
Caruso CEO Corinne Verdery said the company spent more than $100 million over the past 19 months to rebuild and improve the property, including new interiors, kitchen equipment, major infrastructure and a new park. The Village is now 99% leased, she said, with roughly one-third of its tenants new to the property, some are even opening their first brick and mortar store this weekend.
Rick Caruso, founder and executive chairman of the company that owns the Village, described the reopening as a major step in a recovery that remains far from complete.
“We are in the middle of a recovery, and this is one chapter,” he told the crowd. “It’s a mega step, no doubt, but there’s many more mega steps to come.”
After the ceremony, Caruso said the turnout had exceeded his expectations. Asked what still needed to happen for the Palisades to be considered commercially recovered, he pointed to the Village as an important start.
“People know now there’s great places to shop and hang out and grab a bite and come to dinner with family and friends,” Caruso said. “So I think we’re off to a really incredible start, beyond my expectations.”
Among the businesses returning to the Palisades is Elyse Walker, whose longtime flagship boutique on Antioch Street was lost in the fire. Walker opened a new flagship at Palisades Village on Saturday, 27 years after opening her first boutique in the neighborhood.
After the fire, Walker said, she and her team did not know how long it would take to return. “Are we coming back in six months? Are we coming back in five years? We have no idea,” she recalled.
But after months spent planning the new location, walking into the store Saturday felt “weirdly very natural,” Walker said.
“This is the community I raised my children in,” she said. “It doesn’t feel awkward, and in some weird ways, it doesn’t feel new.”
Walker said she was seeing “a lot of familiar faces” Saturday and was struck by the number of people who came to the Palisades to support its businesses.
Bostic and her husband, Julianne, moved to the Palisades from Chicago in 2020 and bought a home within walking distance of the Village. It quickly became part of their family routine — coffee, birthday celebrations, anniversary dinners and ice cream after their children’s games.
“We were here at least once or twice a week,” she said. “Having it come back means so much because we lost everything in the fire. We left with what we were wearing, and we left our house, our belongings, our community, our neighbors.”
Their home burned in the fire. Bostic said the family had been dropped by its insurer a week before the blaze and did not have the funds to fully rebuild, but has been working through the process. They are living in a rental in Brentwood while reconstructing their house, which has now been framed and roofed.
She called the Village reopening the first major milestone in the neighborhood’s recovery. The next, she said, will be the return of schools and more families coming back to rebuilt homes.
Councilmember Traci Park, who represents Pacific Palisades as part of Council District 11, called the reopening an important moment in the community’s recovery.
“This is just an incredible moment in recovery, not just for the Pacific Palisades, but for the entire City of Los Angeles,” said Park, who was among those at the Village Saturday. “This really is the heart of town. It is that economic nerve center of the Palisades. So to see so many businesses returning and to see so many people coming out today to support them, it’s just really heartwarming.”
Park said new construction is underway throughout the community, schools are returning and some residents have begun moving into rebuilt homes. But she said the recovery also requires balancing the return of businesses with the return of enough residents to support them.
Significant gaps remain. One of the most common demands she hears from residents, Park said, is for a major grocery store to return.
“There are just certain essentials in any community that you need to have,” she said, citing a post office, drug store and other everyday businesses.
Schools are another piece of the recovery still underway.
John Evans, head of Village School, said the private school broke ground on its rebuild July 20 and expects to return to its Palisades campus in January 2028. The school, which serves students in TK through sixth grade and has about 240 students, is currently operating from a temporary campus in Santa Monica.
Evans said the turnout at Palisades Village on Saturday gave him a sense that part of the community was beginning to feel like home again. But for him, a fuller recovery will come with the return of schools and the ordinary routines that once connected them to places like the Village.
“I think a town is really about their parks and their schools and the gathering places,” Evans said.
He said a true milestone will be seeing children back in the Palisades, walking through the Village to get ice cream, meet friends or see a movie.
The Bostics’ daughter, G.G., who starts high school next week, had a simpler wish for what comes next.
“I’d like to see the rest of the stores that aren’t opening come back,” she said, “and all the people that lived here, that we love, come back as well.”