A year after the historic fire that tore through Pacific Palisades, the first residents — those with homes that survived the blaze — are starting to return to the once-affluent neighborhood. The next challenge: getting others to decide to come back.
So far, the return has been slow, with most residents either embarking on rebuilding or taking a wait-and-see approach before making that commitment. In the meantime, stakeholders — from commercial property owners to homebuilders — are still figuring out how to market the Pacific Palisades instead of having to wait for the area to fully recover.
Developers and media gathered last month for a tour of 915 Kagawa St., what Thomas James Homes officials and Mayor Karen Bass call the first newly built home in post-fire Pacific Palisades. A few days later, thousands convened at the Palisades Village — the retail complex that some see as a community center — for a Christmas tree-lighting ceremony.
But a visit to the Palisades on nearly any other day tells a different story: No stores at Palisades Village, a retail site largely undamaged from the blaze and owned by Rick Caruso’s eponymous development firm, have reopened. Streets are mostly empty save for construction vehicles, pickup trucks and street vendors feeding workers. Hammering, sawing and drilling echo across burned lots occupied by frames of homes with newly started construction.
There is some growing commitment. A larger percentage of commercial property owners have shown more willingness to rebuild and remain than residents, and some homeowners are doubling down on the area by buying more property.
Still, most residents have yet to return to the neighborhood a year after the one of California's worst wildfires on record tore through Pacific Palisades — destroying nearly 5,500 single-family homes and dozens of apartment buildings, stores and offices.
Even the home on Kagawa Street isn’t for a returning local; it’s a model home to tout the potential of what’s to come. Those with ties to the area note that a number of residents and business owners are plotting how to return to the area — and they’re highlighting these positive signs of momentum to keep the Palisades top of mind.
Danny Rainer, an executive vice president at JLL who oversees office leasing from the real estate services firm’s Century City office, is one resident making an earlier-than-average return to the Palisades. His home escaped without major structural damage but has been undergoing smoke remediation over the past year. In the meantime, he and his family — his wife, 2-year-old child and newborn — have been living in a townhouse elsewhere in Los Angeles.
He’s happy to be back. Though upon his return, while he doesn’t see debris, he does see absence.
“There’s vacant lots everywhere,” Rainer said. “It still feels like ground zero.”
Glimpse of the future
A few weeks before the home at 915 Kagawa was completed, Jeffrey Sandorf, a fourth-generation Palisadian, walked the property. In the wake of the fires, Sandorf, a veteran builder and real estate agent, joined Thomas James Homes as vice president of sales, where he’s overseeing the brand’s efforts in the Palisades.
Sandorf described the neighborhood where Kagawa Street is, known as the Alphabet Streets, as “Americana.”
“This was very, very family focused,” Sandorf said. “Families walking to Little League, Girl Scouts on the corner selling cookies and lemonade.”
It’s a version of the Palisades Sandorf says will return — eventually. To expedite that process, the firm says it plans to host more community events at its new model home, such as local restaurant nights and information sessions for homeowners looking to rebuild.
Some signs of life have started to emerge. For example, the Palisades playground has reopened, drawing families back, even if they’re still living elsewhere. Across from the playground, bocce ball courts host resident-led leagues while, down the street, the Palisades Garden Cafe has reopened for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
“The first time, driving through here, my heart sank,” Sandorf said, adding that things are getting better. “You come today, and it’s like, OK, I see it. We got a long way to go, but I can see it.”
Those updates are promising, but they’re not yet enough to sustain an entire community. Schools are still little more than piles of rubble, though construction is underway and some have timelines to reopen. There are minimal grocery options, with a CVS Pharmacy operating as the primary services store. The other main retailer is a hardware store that largely serves construction companies and workers.
Questions are rampant among displaced residents, according to Kambiz Kamdar, a Palisadian and developer.
“The information people want is, are my neighbors coming back? Who’s planning to build? Is our community coming back?” Kamdar said. He is working with Cosmic Buildings, a modular home building company, and he founded Pali Builds, a database tracking recovery efforts.
Rainer also described a fog of rumor and private decision-making, with residents desperate for any kind of information about reopening and what life will look like if they decide to return.
“They want to know about evacuation plans,” Kamdar echoed. “They want to know about infrastructure. They want to know, are the power lines going to be underground? So they’re waiting for the city to make those decisions or make those announcements.”
Rooftops and retail
Of course, those concerns aren’t stunting all activity in the Palisades. Anthony Marguleas, a real estate agent and resident of the Palisades, said the residential market is about a third of the way through the expected postfire sales.
Those transactions have been split pretty evenly between developer buyers and owner buyers, he explained. On the one hand, there are developers, like Thomas James Homes, that see value in investing in the Palisades and participating in the rebuild.
More than that, though, there are residents who are buying their next-door neighbor’s lot to double the size of their property. There are also those who are buying to upgrade their view. And there’s a fraction of older buyers who are buying lots as gifts for their children.
It’s a sign that there’s still “a huge demand to buy lots,” but whether those lots will be occupied anytime soon depends on location, Marguleas said in an interview.
“In the Alphabet Streets, where 99% of the homes got destroyed, you don’t really want to be the first home back,” he said. “If you’re in other neighborhoods, it’s relatively untouched. It feels like it’s normal again.”
That challenge has come up elsewhere, too. James Mead, CEO at Thomas James Homes, for example, said his company expects to complete most of its homes closer to the end of 2026 and beginning of 2027, hopefully giving the commercial redevelopment time to catch up with residential.
“We can build back quickly,” Mead said at an event in December, “but again, we don’t want to put people in a house without a place to go for groceries.”
Commercial activity
Commercial property owners appear to be largely staying put. In the past year, only four notable commercial property sales have closed in the Palisades as the area works to recover from last year’s fires, according to CoStar data.
Two are vacant lots where properties burned, and two are small apartment complexes that survived the flames, like the 11-unit Sunset Hills apartment complex at 16185 W. Sunset Blvd. that sold to a private investor in November for $2.8 million, or about $255,000 per unit.
Three of these four sales beat their asking prices, showing strong demand even in fire-affected zones.
Owners of small office properties that survived the blaze are remediating properties in hope of landing new tenants ahead of the neighborhood’s rebound.
In late September, the medical office building at 984 Monument St. held a grand reopening ceremony with drinks, snacks and music. The property, currently 50% leased, offers “a rare opportunity to secure a prestigious address in one of LA’s most desirable coastal communities,” according to marketing materials.
Brad Keyes and his partner, Josh Stein-Sapir, are planning to rebuild an 8,800-square-foot mixed-use building in the Palisades that their firm, Keyes Real Estate, acquired in December 2021. The project will include six residential apartments above ground-floor retail space.
The property previously housed an approximately 5,500-square-foot office and retail building, constructed in 1958. The partners had waited nearly three years to begin a remodel after their anchor tenant — a ground-floor massage business called The Massage Place — vacated the space, and they had just secured permits to convert the upper floors into apartments and the ground floor into a Gracie Barra Pacific Palisades jiu-jitsu academy, along with their Westside office, when wildfires swept through the area in January.
New beginning
“We’re effectively starting from scratch,” Keyes said. “Our previous approvals were for a remodel, not a ground-up rebuild.”
The company has since filed plans with the city seeking entitlements to redevelop the former office building at 15113 Sunset Blvd. as a mixed-use property.
“The hardest part is time,” Keyes said. “Capital can be replaced — time can’t. Even with the state and city’s emphasis on recovery and expanding housing, the process remains slow and difficult.”
In the meantime, Keyes Real Estate has been operating the firm’s regional business out of a 33-foot Airstream trailer.
Keyes expects the entitlement process to take one to two years, followed by another year or more to secure building permits before construction can begin.
“I hope the mom-and-pop businesses return — they’re essential to the character and fabric of the community,” Keyes said. He believes the Palisades will reemerge over the next five years as one of the best places to live in Los Angeles, driven by its community, location and new construction.
The Palisades’ ‘beacon’
Just one grocery store has officially committed to returning to Pacific Palisades: Erewhon, a grocer that serves smoothies alongside elegantly stacked rows of produce.
The store is reopening at Palisades Village sometime around August, when Caruso’s $60 million renovation plan is slated for completion. The developer has touted a new addition to anchor the project: a steakhouse from LA chef Nancy Silverton, whose Michelin-starred cuisine is likely to attract diners from across Southern California.
The development team prioritized showcasing local residents and businesses in the property’s revamp, selecting local fashion maven Elyse Walker — who lost her home and her Palisades store in the January blaze — to replace the Saint Laurent Paris store on its prime corner.
“Our goal from the beginning was to be a beacon of hope that Pacific Palisades is still here and coming back stronger than ever,” said Caruso Chief Executive Officer Corinne Verdery in an email. “When we reopen in August 2026, Palisades Village will continue to serve as a center of town and contribute to long-term economic recovery, bringing together retail, dining, activities, events and public spaces.”
Rick Caruso leads Steadfast LA, a nonprofit of top regional business executives that has partnered with stakeholders to reopen public spaces like the Palisades Recreation Center, aiming to attract residents and reassure the community that recovery won’t be prolonged.
The group is partnering with Banc of California to invest $1 million in helping small businesses devastated by the fires recover. At the same time, the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and other business and philanthropic organizations are working to replace inventory, speed reopenings and stabilize payrolls as neighborhoods rebuild.
“The Pacific Palisades community is a remarkable and resilient group of families and businesses,” Verdery said. “We heard from displaced members that they wanted opportunities to reunite.”
Retailers tied to the Palisades, like longtime skating shop Paliskates, are preparing to return. Local entrepreneur Erica Simpson has operated Paliskates on Swarthmore Avenue for 25 years, predating Caruso’s development. The original store was destroyed in the Palisades Fire, forcing an online-only operation for months.
Rebuilding a community
In November, Paliskates opened a temporary shop on San Vicente Boulevard in Brentwood, thanks to KWP Real Estate Vice President Christine Deschaine, who helped Paliskates secure the new space.
The reopening drew loyal customers despite rain, marking a step toward restoring a cultural hub for local skaters. The new location offers skate gear, apparel and locally themed merchandise, and Simpson hopes to return to the Palisades when conditions allow.
As Deschaine put it, tenants like Simpson are saying, “I still want to be in business … why don’t I make sure my customers have a place to find me?”
Rainer, the JLL executive vice president, is among the first to return to his street in the Palisades. His home was one of the 40% that survived the aggressive flames, and his neighborhood reflects the divide taking root as months pass.
One neighbor’s family, for example, scattered across states. Another moved closer to the Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles. The broader pattern indicates a community split apart, at least temporarily, Rainer said.
Looking ahead, he said the next 12 months will be a stress test: His hope is that “the majority of homes are under construction,” because if residents are still stuck in permitting and plan check two years out, “we’ve got big problems.”
In the long run, Rainer expects the Palisades to come back, but not as a simple reset. He predicts the rebuild will likely usher in “a much more vibrant, younger, energetic group of people” over the next five to seven years, even if the path to that future is slow.