Playa Vista Celebrates 25 Years

Fifty years ago, Playa Vista as a community was non-existent. Instead of the beautiful and bustling neighborhood we know today, the more than two miles of land acted as a home to other industries - first, for Howard Hughes' aircrafts, and in the 1990s, soundstages that became the birthplace of legendary movies like Avatar and Titanic.

And then, 25 years ago, the Playa Vista we have come to love began being brought to life.

This is what brought Loyola Marymount University's Silicon Beach Think Tank and the Playa Vista Institute together in January 2026 to host "Playa Vista's 25th Anniversary: An Evening to Reflect and Celebrate," an event that looked back to honor the people, places and things that contributed to making Playa Vista the place that it is today, and will be in the future.

Since 2018, Playa Vista has been home to LMU's satellite campus where undergraduate and graduate students come for journalism, film and business classes and the LMU School of Film and Television has their graduate division. The neighborhood has also opened a world of career opportunities for students, with companies like Google, PetSpace, and IMAX just around the corner. LMU and the Playa Vista neighborhood have a long-standing, mutual relationship, as LMU President Thomas Poon, Ph.D. discussed in his opening remarks.

"From LMU's perspective, Playa Vista has always been more than a place," Poon said. "It embodies a vision that complements our mission of educating the whole person, grounded in moral and ethical discernment, and deeply engaged in the world. LMU is so proud to be part of a community that I see as creative, connected, and catalytic."

A part of the night was dedicated to reflecting on the journey that Playa Vista had to go through to get to where it is now, manifesting in a panel titled "Shaping the Rules of a Community." This panel, moderated by Playa Vista Institute's Marc Huffman, detailed all the different voices and initiatives required to start building Playa Vista.

One of the pivotal groups involved in the early stages of planning was Friends of Ballona Wetlands, a group founded in 1978 with the purpose of preserving the 600-acre strip of nature and wildlife that runs alongside the Playa Vista neighborhood. The Friends of Ballona Wetlands were tasked with finding as many people and groups to advocate with them as they could, which led them to Ruth Galanter. Galanter was eager to help with the work and ended up running and winning a seat on the Los Angeles City Council from 1987 to 2003, recapping this experience on the panel.

"I was unhappy with a number of things that were threatening [the region], most specifically the destruction of the Ballona Wetlands, and Ruth Lansford, who founded the Friends of Ballona Wetlands did a really smart thing … She recruited me to join her efforts to try to prevent development that was threatening the wetlands, and I thought the one thing I could do to help Ruth was run for city council," said Galanter.

Galanter, Lansford and other advocates would inevitably lead the charge on filing and settling a lawsuit against the California Coastal Commission in 1990, saving 340 acres of Ballona Wetlands and securing commitment to create and maintain the Freshwater Marsh, and for the creation of the Ballona Discovery Park. These were the initial efforts that ultimately led to the state acquisition of the Ballona Wetlands and creation of the Ballona Wetlands Ecological Reserve.

Con Howe, former planning director for Los Angeles (1992-2005), and LMU's Eric Strauss, Ph.D., executive director of the Center for Urban Resilience (CURes), also sat in on the panel, adding insight into the thought process behind Playa Vista in the early stages and the importance of preserving nature as a part of the neighborhood.

"When we think about the ethos behind urban ecology, there are two central facets: One is that humans are integral parts of the ecosystem; and second is that cities are not the problem - cities are the solutions," said Strauss.

The architecture and design of Playa Vista also set the neighborhood apart from others, with designers putting an emphasis on public space, versatile land uses and a clear architecture that nods to classic traditions. Stefanos Polyzoides, dean of Architecture and Planning at the University of Notre Dame, and Playa Vista Institute's Kevin Kelly spoke on a fireside chat about urban design and community. Polyzoides was a key player in the design of the Playa Vista master plan, contributing to the neighborhood's "new urbanism" pillars.

"The easiest way to describe [Playa Vista] is actually what it isn't. And what it isn't - it's not one building at a time, which has been the tendency of the last few generations," Polyzoides said. "It's really taking the buildings and making places that are both understandable … but also as a way of building those kinds of cities in conjunction with nature, with respect for every aspect of the human experience in nature, for nature itself."

The innovation of Playa Vista, both in idea and design, has already made the neighborhood such a staple of L.A.'s life, and there is no intention of the minds behind Playa Vista to stop innovating any time soon.

Fernando Guerra, Ph.D., founding director of the Thomas and Dorothy Leavey Center for the Study of Los Angeles (StudyLA) at LMU and Randy Johnson, senior executive at Maguire Thomas Partners, took the time to discuss the standalone example that Playa Vista has grown to be, and the work that is required to bring Playa Vista's ideal to the greater Los Angeles area.

Guests listened, learned, asked questions and mingled about the extensive history behind Playa Vista through panels and the Playa Vista documentary film playing one room over, and the reception after the panels that brought everyone together.

"LMU is so honored to be a part of the continued growth and success of Playa Vista and looks forward to continued collaboration in the future," said LMU executive director for Strategic Partnerships and Initiatives Jody Skenderian, the future is bright for our community."