"For nearly 30 years, The Commons at Calabasas has been a place where the community comes together," Caruso chief executive Corinne Verdery said at the February groundbreaking. "It has grown alongside this city, serving as a destination to shop, dine, and connect. Today, we are proud to break ground on its next chapter."
That is the version of the story everyone in Calabasas has already heard: the movie theater is gone, something new is coming, patience required. What that framing skips over is the part that actually matters if you still shop there on a Saturday. The Commons right now is not one project moving through one timeline. It is two sides of the same property running on completely different schedules, and knowing which side you are standing on changes what you should expect this fall.
The Marquee Went Dark in December, Not This Summer
If you have been avoiding The Commons because you assumed the whole place was a construction zone, you are working off outdated information. The Regency Calabasas Commons theater closed for good on December 28, 2025, a little over eight months before this piece was written. It was not the first screen to go dark in this stretch of the Valley either. It followed theater closures in Agoura Hills and Westlake Village, which means Calabasas has been without an on-site cinema for the better part of a year, and the nearest screening now means a drive rather than a walk across the parking lot.
The theater's closing is also the reason the rest of the project exists. Its footprint, along with the parking that surrounded it, is where the new residential building is going up. That is the piece that gets photographed at groundbreakings. It is not the piece that affects your Tuesday.
What's Actually Under Construction, and What Isn't
Here is the distinction that gets lost in most coverage of this project: construction is confined to the west side of the property, on and around the old theater site. The section anchored by Gelson's, along with the existing restaurants on the north and south ends of the center, is explicitly untouched. That is not a developer's promise about future intentions. It is the current physical reality of the property as of this fall.
| Still running as normal | Under active construction (through at least September 2026) |
|---|---|
| Gelson's and the grocery-anchored end of the center | The former Regency Cinema site and adjacent parking |
| Barnes & Noble, Sephora, Lululemon, Williams Sonoma Home | The new 80-unit apartment building and its parking structure |
| Saturday evening live music and seasonal prix fixe menus | Roughly 27,000 square feet of new retail and restaurant shells |
| Existing restaurants on the north and south wings | The pedestrian paseo and community greenspace |
The developer's own construction FAQ, updated on a rolling three-month basis, lists July 2026 through September 2026 as the current phase for both tracks: the new commercial shells and the parking structure serving the apartments. In plain terms, that means the work you would notice this month, fencing, staging, a partially built shell where the theater used to sit, is happening on schedule and is not a sign that anything has stalled.
Six Names That Show the Other Half Never Stopped
While one corner of the property gets rebuilt from the ground up, the working section of The Commons has kept adding to its roster. None of these are part of the new Commons Lane construction. They are tenants that opened in the existing, untouched footprint, and together they are the clearest evidence that the center's day-to-day rhythm hasn't paused for the project next door.
- KazuNori, the hand roll bar
- BLVD Steak
- Superba Food + Bread
- Bacio di Latte
- HiHo Cheeseburger
- Zimmermann, the designer clothing showroom
There is also a persistent rumor around a location for Uovo joining the lineup, though nothing has been confirmed publicly. If it lands, it would be another addition to the working side of the property rather than the construction site, which is worth remembering if you see the name mentioned and assume it means the new retail space has opened early.
The Timeline Nobody's Broadcasting Loudly
The City Council approved the underlying plan in December 2023, after roughly two years of community meetings. Ground didn't break until February 3, 2026, more than two years later, with Mayor James Bozajian, who was also mayor when The Commons first opened in 1998, on hand alongside Caruso.
From there the sequence is specific enough to plan around. New retail and restaurant space, the roughly 27,000 square feet replacing the theater and part of the parking lot, is targeted to open by late 2026, ahead of everything else. The 80 apartment homes, along with the paseo and community greenspace built around them, are targeted for completion in fall 2027. That gap of nearly a year between the storefronts opening and the residential building finishing is intentional. Caruso has said publicly that shops and restaurants will open first, with the housing following once construction on that portion wraps.
If you want to track it yourself rather than take a developer's word for the timeline, the city keeps its own project page under current projects, separate from Caruso's marketing site, where meeting agendas and public records for the entitlement are posted.
What This Means for the Rest of Your Fall
None of this requires a change in your routine if you already treat The Commons as your default Saturday stop. Gelson's, the bookstore, the existing restaurant lineup and the seasonal programming, including the live music that runs Saturday evenings during the season, are all continuing on the section of the property that construction hasn't reached. What changes is what you'll see if you walk toward the west side near where the theater used to stand: an active build site that is on pace, not behind, relative to the schedule Caruso has published.
The bigger shift is still ahead. Somewhere between late 2026 and the following spring, a dozen or so new storefronts should start opening in sequence on the new paseo, well before the apartments above them are ready. That is the moment worth watching if you are curious what a "curated new shops and restaurants with outdoor dining" plan actually looks like once it's built rather than rendered. Until then, the honest read on The Commons this fall is less dramatic than the marquee going dark made it seem: one half of the property is being rebuilt on a public schedule, and the other half never stopped operating.
If you're weighing what a changing commercial corridor like this means for property values nearby, or you're trying to time a move around a neighborhood in transition, Tina Lucarelli can walk you through what's actually happening on the ground in Calabasas, not just what's on the rendering. Request a private consultation and complimentary home valuation to talk through it.
