$700 Million (!!!) Research Park - Part 3

She keeps asking pesky questions.

It may surprise you to know that in a period of state budget distress, the governor is putting $200 million into UCLA's new research park at the old Westside Pavillion. From the Orange County Register:

...Newsom has provided UCLA with $200 million in state funding to transform the 700,000 square-foot property into a research park focused on curing diseases, turbocharging computers’ problem-solving capabilities and helping humanity adapt to the challenges of the future. The state has committed an additional $300 million in the future to continue supporting UCLA’s research, he said.

“What I love to say about about the state of California is the future happens here first; we are the state of dreamers, of doers, of entrepreneurs and innovators” Newsom said on Wednesday. “We also recognize that if you’re going to do well in the future, you’ve got to invest in it and that’s really the spirit of why we are here.”

The envisioned research park, located two miles from UCLA’s Westwood campus, will house the new California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy at UCLA and the UCLA Center for Quantum Science and Engineering...

Full story at https://www.ocregister.com/2024/01/03/gov-newsom-gives-ucla-200-million-to-turn-westside-mall-into-research-center/.

From the governor's news release:

...The new UCLA Research Park is made possible in part by a prior state investment to establish and fund the immunology and immunotherapy institute at UCLA. The institute is also supported by a group of founding donors from the biotechnology, academic, entrepreneurship, and philanthropic communities. Harnessing the power of public-private partnerships, and working with key partners — including Google, Hudson Pacific Properties, and Macerich — the state is saving approximately $223 million on the research park and opening years ahead of schedule. Google, which previously leased part of the property, helped enable and support UCLA’s acquisition...

Full release at https://www.gov.ca.gov/2024/01/03/governor-newsom-announces-world-leading-science-technology-research-center-in-los-angeles/.

Yours truly has been told that when this project went before the Regents, they were told about building it over some med center parking lot. What has emerged seems to be a whole lot bigger.