Walk the west end of The Commons at Calabasas this month and you will notice the quiet first. The patio where Marmalade Cafe served the community for almost 30 years sits empty now, the only sign of life a catering truck idling out front. A few doors down, fencing around the old Regency theater site marks where a parking structure for new apartments is going up. And a short walk past that, the patio at Superba Food + Bread is full on a Tuesday night and KazuNori has a line for hand rolls, a crowd that has no memory of what used to sit in those storefronts.
Caruso, the developer that has owned and operated The Commons since it opened in November 1998, has been telling residents all year that construction will not disrupt the shopping and dining experience they know. The company's own FAQ page for the project states plainly that the center will remain open through every phase of work, with all stores, restaurants and amenities continuing to operate as usual. That message is true for most of the property. It is not true for everyone who has been leasing space here since Bill Clinton was in office.
What Caruso Says Is Happening
The redevelopment now underway, branded Commons Lane, broke ground on February 3, 2026, with a ceremony that drew Caruso himself, Calabasas Mayor James Bozajian, City Manager Kindon Meik, and council members David Shapiro, Alicia Weintraub, and Ed Albrecht. Caruso's chief executive officer, Corinne Verdery, framed the moment as a continuation rather than a rupture.
"For nearly 30 years, The Commons at Calabasas has been a place where the community comes together. Today, we are proud to break ground on its next chapter."
The version of the project that actually broke ground looks smaller than what Caruso first proposed. The original filing called for up to 119 apartments, and the plan the city council approved that December covered nearly 211,000 square feet of mixed-use construction across two sites. By the time the project broke ground in February 2026, it had settled at 80 apartments and about 27,000 square feet of new shops and restaurants. Part of that came down to height. One building going up on the old theater site will reach as high as 85 feet, a figure Bozajian, then a councilmember, called "extraordinary" during the approval hearing. He asked that the project return to the council if it grew any larger, and the city's community development director assured him it would not. The other new buildings in the former parking lot are capped at 46 feet.
Caruso's own FAQ pegs the current construction window at July through September 2026, which puts the neighborhood in the middle of the loudest stretch right now. New tenants are being handed their spaces to begin build-outs. The parking structure for the apartments is underway. Retail and restaurant openings are targeted for late 2026, with the apartments themselves ready by fall 2027.
What Actually Closed This Month
The gap between "business as usual" and what tenants are experiencing showed up in early August. Marmalade Cafe closed its Calabasas location on August 2, 2026, one of the center's original tenants from 1998 and a fixture for nearly three decades. In a statement, the company pointed to the construction itself as the cause, describing a steep drop in business and saying it had sought rent relief from the landlord during the extended construction period and been turned down. The company's next closest location is at The Promenade in Thousand Oaks, meaning longtime regulars now have to drive out of Calabasas entirely for their usual order.
Fresh Brothers Pizza closed around the same time, another casualty of the same construction stretch. Both closures land in the same six-month window that Caruso has described as compatible with normal operations, which is worth sitting with if you are the kind of resident who has a standing Sunday morning table.
The Anchors Still Standing
Not every original tenant is gone. Several names that have anchored The Commons since the late 1990s are still open right now, even with the west end torn up:
- Barnes & Noble, an anchor tenant since the center opened
- Ralphs and Polacheck's Jewelers, both original 1998 tenants, the latter carrying Rolex and Patek Philippe
- See's Candies and King's Fish House, both longtime fixtures of the center
These sit on the north and south ends of the property, the sections Caruso has said will not be touched by the current phase of work. If your routine runs through any of these, the fencing around the old theater site is background noise rather than an obstacle.
The New Tenants Already Filling In
While Marmalade was closing, a different set of tenants was already trading nearby. KazuNori, the hand roll bar chain, Bacio di Latte, BLVD Steak, Superba Food + Bread, and Zimmermann, a designer clothing showroom, have all opened at The Commons over the past several months, ahead of the bulk of the Commons Lane construction. There is talk locally that Uovo, another dining concept, may join that lineup before the year is out, though nothing has been confirmed publicly.
The pattern is the churn map made visible. The center is not simply adding square footage. It is swapping a set of tenants that opened alongside the mall in 1998 for a set that is opening alongside a very different Commons in 2026.
The Practical Details Behind The Noise
A few numbers from the city's own review of the project are worth knowing if you plan to spend time here through the fall. The traffic mitigation fee Caruso agreed to pay the city, negotiated in part because Mayor Pro Tem Alicia Weintraub raised concerns about congestion on the surrounding roads during the 2023 approval hearing, came to $120,000. That money is meant to help the city manage the added car and foot traffic once the new retail and apartments open. In the meantime, expect tighter parking near the west end while the structure serving the new apartments goes up.
The theater closure also ends something else for Calabasas. Regency Calabasas was the third movie theater in this stretch of the Valley to shut down in recent years, following earlier closures in Agoura Hills and Westlake Village. Calabasas is now without an on-site cinema for the first time since The Commons opened, which changes what a Friday night at the mall actually looks like for anyone who used to catch a show before dinner.
What This Means For Your Next Visit
If you are headed to The Commons this fall, the honest version of what to expect is a split experience. The north and south ends, where Ralphs, Barnes & Noble, See's Candies, and Polacheck's sit, feel largely untouched. The west end, where the theater and Marmalade used to be, is an active construction site behind fencing, with a new crowd already forming around KazuNori and Superba a few doors away.
The Commons has always pulled from well beyond Calabasas itself. Caruso's own materials note that it draws shoppers from Malibu, Thousand Oaks, and across the San Fernando Valley, and residents in Woodland Hills and the surrounding hills have long treated it as their own version of a town square. What's happening there right now is not a preview of future change. It is the change, arriving in the middle of a Tuesday dinner rush while a 28-year-old cafe packs up its patio furniture for the last time.
If you're watching how a place like Calabasas is shifting and want to talk through what that means for your own plans in the area, Sterling Realty & Lending is a call away. Schedule a free consultation with Caroline Daniel whenever you're ready.
