The January 2025 wildfires that swept through Pacific Palisades wreaked devastation practically beyond belief, destroying more than 5,600 homes and businesses.

On Saturday, the Westside community marked a long overdue milestone for fire-weary residents: the reopening of the Palisades Village shopping center.

The 125,000-square-foot upscale mall, featuring shops, restaurants and a movie theater, survived the blaze but required renovations that cost its owner and developer Rick Caruso more than $100 million, including major infrastructure work.

“I have been waiting 19 months to say welcome to Palisades Village,” said Caruso, executive chairman of his eponymous company. “I’m not going to be blind here. We are in the middle of a recovery, and this is one chapter. It’s a mega step, no doubt, but there’s many more mega steps to come.”

The reopening was packed with shoppers, store owners and residents, who milled about the refurbished center and enjoyed free drinks and food offered from kiosks. Hyper upscale grocer Erewhon at the center will reopen in January.

The center draws customers not just from Pacific Palisades but from Brentwood, Malibu, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica and even Calabasas.

The $200-million shopping center, which first opened in 2018, is 99% leased, with one-third of the shops new, including an Italian steakhouse called Spacca Tutto by chef Nancy Silverton and women’s apparel retailer LESET.

Also opening a shop in the center is Pacific Palisades fashion designer Elyse Walker, who lost her 25-year flagship location on Antioch Street to the blaze.

“The past 20 months has proven to be one of the most challenging times in Los Angeles history, and yet here we are all together as a community to rally for a revival,” she said, during the grand opening event. “Today is truly a homecoming.”

Other Pacific Palisades shops that burned and relocated to the Village include K Bakery and Loomey’s Toys. Among the returning tenants is Angelini Ristorante & Bar run by prominent L.A. chef Gino Angelini.

Other businesses have been reopening outside the mall. Near the shopping center, there are homes and other businesses in various stages of reconstruction, some nearly complete, others with just framing or drywall.

Allison Holdorff Polhill, president of the Pacific Palisades Community Council, who lost her home in the blaze, said that the community is steadily rebuilding but still has a long way to go.

She figures it will take five years before much of the reconstruction is finished, with the reopening of the center signaling a major step forward, such as when Palisades Charter High School returned to its main campus in January.

“This type of activity, opening the Village, gives everyone hope that there’s businesses to patronize, all of these things that people do,” said Holdorff Polhill, 61, a 30-year resident who hopes to move back into her home in October.

The mall’s survival amid the community’s devastation was not without controversy given Caruso’s use of private firefighters to ward off the flames.

Developer Rick Caruso greets crowd members attending the grand reopening of his Palisades Village in Pacific Palisades on Saturday.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

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Caruso, the former Los Angeles mayoral candidate, has defended their use saying they freed up city firefighters during the catastrophic firestorm. He also has credited the mall’s use of fire-resistant construction materials.

“This town was Mayberry by the sea. I always called it like living inside a Norman Rockwell picture, and then a nuclear bomb hit,” he said, in remarks Saturday.

In reopening the mall, the billionaire real estate mogul whose company owns the Grove, the Americana at Brand and the Commons at Calabasas has taken something of a risk.

Many Pacific Palisades residents are still displaced, with an estimated 30% of the Village’s customer base affected, Caruso has said.

However, the developer surely looks to be able to count on local customers such as Julian Bostic, who moved into a home not far from the Village in 2020, only to see it burn down.

Bostic, 54, who is rebuilding the home where he lived with his wife and two children, said the Village became an “incredibly important part of our existence here in the Palisades” — and a beacon of hope.

“When the firestorm struck, we were gathered there with other community members and just friends and just sort of in shell shock and thinking about our next move and not really sure exactly what to do, “ he recalled.

“And I remember distinctly that someone said, ‘Well, the village didn’t burn, right? The village is up and running. The structure is still in place,’” Bostic said. “And I remember that that was the first moment that we, as a family, had any sort of hope that our community was going to return in the way that we once knew it.”

Yves Felker and his son Adam Felker, 2, of Los Angeles, join crowds attending the grand reopening of Rick Caruso’s Palisades Village in Pacific Palisades on Saturday.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

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In his first address to the Disney faithful as chief executive, Josh D’Amaro pledged that Walt Disney Co. would create new stories and experiences at the D23 fan event Wednesday night in Anaheim.

D’Amaro was greeted like a rock star during the Burbank media giant’s film and TV presentation as the assembled crowd of more than 12,000 Disney super fans at the Honda Center gave him a rousing round of applause and cheers. He beamed at the audience, while clasping his hands together in front of him.

“I believe that in order to lead this company, you have to understand what it actually feels like to be a fan,” he said onstage. “And, I do. ”

D’Amaro is no stranger to the D23 stage; in his past role as parks chief, he would give updates on the latest news for the experiences division.

But now, as CEO, he said the company would deepen its connection with fans by continuing to develop fresh stories and new experiences.

“We are not here waiting for the future,” he said. “We’re building it … we’re actually building it right now.”

While Disney unveiled several upcoming original stories, including an animated supernatural flick from Pixar called “Ghost Market” set for release in spring 2028 and “Clay,” a Disney Animation film coming later that year about a mentor-mentee relationship, many of its projects are related to existing franchises.

The company unveiled details about Pixar’s “Coco 2” and “Incredibles 3,” both of which got huge applause from the audience, as well as a live-action “Lilo & Stitch 2.” Fans cheered for the return of the Jonas Brothers reprising their original Disney roles in “Camp Rock 3.” Even a teaser from “The Bluey Movie” elicited screams from the largely adult audience.

Earlier in the day, Disney executives revealed additional plans about its streaming strategy during a series of panels.

The company plans to lean more on creators with its new Verts vertical video feed on Disney+, a new feature designed to increase engagement. So far, it has grown in popularity among users, said Erin Teague, executive vice president of product management at Disney Entertainment and ESPN.

“What we’re seeing is as users are engaging with their vertical video experience, they are actually engaging in the overall product experience, double the amount of time,” she said onstage. “That means that we’re meeting users where we are.”

The company also plans to invest more in local international content to help grow the Disney+ service around the world. Disney has seen its local Korean shows perform well in Asia, as well as Brazil, executives said. And shows that do well in one country can often be remade in other regions.

Over the next three years, Disney plans to roughly triple the number of local original series on Disney+.

Waymo’s robotaxis will soon roam a much larger portion of California as the company received approval to expand across 18 counties.

The California Public Utilities Commission gave Waymo permission to operate in San Diego and Sacramento, as well as in communities in Marin, Napa, Orange and Riverside counties, among others.

The approval will allow the Alphabet-owned company to more than triple its service area in the regions surrounding Los Angeles and San Francisco.

“While Waymo is receiving its permits today, expansion will be gradual and guided by its safety framework,” said Waymo spokesperson Sandy Karp. “Waymo’s immediate focus is preparing to launch rider-only service in San Diego later this summer and continuing to validate its technology in Sacramento.”

On Friday, Waymo, based in Mountain View, announced the CPUC approved a letter from the company first filed in January. The new service area will eventually stretch from Santa Clarita and Thousand Oaks down to San Diego in Southern California, and from Sacramento to San Jose in Northern California.

The expansion follows Waymo’s launch of its new vehicle dubbed the Ojai, which is larger and cheaper to produce than the retrofitted Jaguar I-Paces that the company previously relied on.

Waymo is well ahead in the robotaxi race, operating in more than 10 major cities while Elon Musk’s Tesla is still facing safety and operational glitches.

Zoox, Amazon’s robotaxi effort, launched its first paid, driverless rides in Las Vegas earlier this week.

Waymo’s self-driving vehicles, which utilize cameras, sensors and lidar, have driven more than 220 million fully autonomous miles. Data collected from miles driven shows Waymo is involved in an estimated 94% fewer collisions that cause serious injuries, Karp said.

Still, collisions involving Waymo vehicles have garnered public attention and criticism, including when a Waymo struck and killed a beloved neighborhood cat in San Francisco last year.

“We look forward to bringing the same mobility and safety benefits millions of Californians already enjoy to more communities, keeping local officials and residents informed every step of the way,” Waymo said in its announcement.