Everyone in Calabasas has an opinion about the cranes at The Commons. Rick Caruso broke ground on the Commons Lane expansion on February 3, and the groundbreaking made the rounds in the local press, complete with a photo of the mayor and the developer digging ceremonial shovels into what used to be a parking lot.
But the groundbreaking isn't actually where the story is. The retail and apartments tied to that ceremony won't open for months, some not until 2027. Meanwhile, on the other side of the same property, the restaurant lineup has already turned over. If you haven't been to The Commons since last year, you're not behind on construction news. You're behind on dinner.
What's Actually Under Construction
The project getting all the headlines sits on the west side of the property, on the footprint of the old Regency Cinema and its parking lot. The Commons' own materials say construction began in January, and Caruso showed up in person for a ceremonial groundbreaking on February 3. Inside that footprint, his team is carving out a new interior street called Commons Lane: 12 to 14 new shops and restaurants along the north side, and 80 apartments going up on the south side, on the exact spot where the theater's screens used to sit. Caruso's chief executive, Corinne Verdery, framed it at the groundbreaking as a continuation rather than a departure.
"For nearly 30 years, The Commons at Calabasas has been a place where the community comes together."
Calabasas Mayor James Bozajian, who was also mayor when the original Commons opened in 1998, said the idea behind this expansion would have been a hard sell three decades ago. "Back 30 years ago, it was unheard of relatively, and people did not want it," he said at the groundbreaking. Caruso's own materials frame the shift more plainly: more residents want a way to stay in Calabasas through life transitions, moving from a house into an apartment without leaving the community they already know.
The Commons' own FAQ says the new shops and restaurants are planned to open before the apartments, roughly at the midpoint of construction, with the residential building finished in fall 2027. Local coverage at the groundbreaking pointed to an even earlier target of late 2026 for the retail piece. Either way, the housing is the part still more than a year out. The stores could land well before that.
The Multiplex Closed First, and Quietly
Before any of the new construction started, the Regency Calabasas Commons theater shut its doors for good on December 28, 2025. It had already survived one near-death experience, closing in September 2022 when Cineworld's bankruptcy took down parent company Regal, then reopening that December under independent operator Regency Theatres. This time there was no second act. The screens went dark to clear the site for the apartment building.
If your Friday night used to end at the Commons multiplex, that habit is the one that actually changed here. The dining scene, as it turns out, kept moving without missing a beat.
The Restaurants Already Turned Over
Here's the part that didn't get a groundbreaking ceremony. Away from the construction fence, in the wings of The Commons that Caruso isn't touching, the tenant lineup has quietly turned over since last year. Ralphs, the property's grocery anchor, has stayed put the entire time, and so have longtime names like King's Fish House and Marmalade Cafe. But look at what filled in around them.
Superba Food + Bread, the California brasserie known for its in-house bakery, opened at The Commons on March 28, 2025, next to Polacheck's Jewelers. That's nearly a year before Caruso ever broke ground on Commons Lane, which is worth sitting with if you assumed the dining refresh was tied to the construction news. It wasn't. It started on its own.
KazuNori, the hand roll bar from the Sushi Nozawa Group, opened its Calabasas location on December 17, 2025, in the suite between BLVD Steak and Starbucks. It's the brand's eighth California location, and it joined SUGARFISH, its sister restaurant, already on the property, along with Shibuya sushi across the street. That's three sushi counters within a block of each other, not counting whatever's in the grocery store's own case.
BLVD Steak moved into the space that used to hold CrossRoads, near King's Fish House, as an extension of the original Sherman Oaks steakhouse. Bacio di Latte, the gelato shop founded in Milan in 2011 by brothers Edoardo and Luigi Tonolli, took over the spot that used to be Jenny's Ice Cream. The Australian fashion label Zimmermann has since filled in as one of the property's newer boutiques.
Here's the current split, as of this month:
| Already open (outside the construction zone) | Still under construction |
|---|---|
| Ralphs and other original anchors | 80 apartments on the former theater site |
| Superba Food + Bread (since March 2025) | 12 to 14 new shops and restaurants along Commons Lane |
| KazuNori (since December 2025) | Community green space and pedestrian paseo |
| BLVD Steak | |
| Bacio di Latte | |
| Zimmermann |
If you've been waiting for the "new Commons" to feel complete before giving it another look, the dining half of that upgrade has been sitting there for months, in Superba's case, over a year.
Where to Watch a Movie Now
Losing the on-site theater doesn't mean losing a screen nearby. A short drive up Mulholland Highway sits King Gillette Ranch, 588 acres of parkland adjacent to Malibu Creek State Park, built around a 1928 mansion designed by Wallace Neff for razor magnate King C. Gillette. The property became public land in 2005 through a partnership that includes the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and the National Park Service, and it now runs a summer outdoor screening series called Silents Under the Stars.
The next one lands Sunday, August 23, 2026, at 7:30 p.m., with a screening of the 1928 silent film The Trail of '98. It's not a replacement for stadium seating and a concession stand, but it's arguably more in keeping with what Calabasas has actually been about since long before the shopping center existed. The ranch also has a roughly one-mile trail to a spot called Inspiration Point, a steep enough climb to feel earned, with 360-degree views that take in the rock formations of Malibu Creek State Park.
The Part Worth Remembering
The version of this story that's easy to tell is "Calabasas is getting a big new development." The more useful version is narrower: the apartments and new storefronts tied to Commons Lane are still a year or more away, the theater that used to anchor a Friday night is gone for good, and the restaurant lineup that's supposed to feel new has already been open long enough that some of it isn't new anymore. If you're planning your week around what's actually available in town right now, the construction fence isn't the thing to watch. The tables at Superba already are.
If you're weighing what a neighborhood like this looks like a few years from now, once Commons Lane finishes and the apartments fill in, that's the kind of long view Christopher Potter and the Potter Group spend their time on. Work With Us when you're ready to talk about what Calabasas is becoming, not just what it already is.
