For more than a decade, Jeremy Agresti wanted to build his biotech company in Los Angeles. Living in Santa Monica with his wife, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, he recognized the talent pool of graduate and post-doctorate students from UCLA, California Institute of Technology and the University of Southern California who would rather stay on the Westside. Yet they ended up leaving for jobs in the Bay Area and other cities with a growing tech sector.
So consequently, Agresti commuted. For years, he flew to Northern California midweek, where his company Triplebar – a biotech startup using artificial intelligence to engineer biological systems for health and nutrition applications – was headquartered in the Bay Area’s life sciences cluster.
Late last year, a shift in the market surfaced when a retrenchment in the Bay Area biotech investment created an opportunity, making talent available and opening the door for Agresti and Chief Executive Shawn Manchester to make the move south – but not just anywhere. They chose Santa Monica.
“This is actually a great time for Santa Monica to invest in industries like biotech, where the hubs are struggling. You have the opportunity to create this anchor of talent and companies for the next wave,” said Agresti, Triplebar founder and chief technology officer. “There are plenty of raw materials here. There hasn’t been momentum – until now.”
Triplebar’s relocation about six months ago is a small but telling data point in a much larger story unfolding across Santa Monica right now. The city that’s the start of the roughly 11-mile stretch of Silicon Beach – and spent years watching its center of gravity drift away – is mounting its most aggressive economic comeback effort. In March, the Santa Monica City Council approved a sweeping package of economic redevelopment measures as part of its Realignment Plan Update – in a push to attract private-sector reinvestment and thus bolster the overall economy.
Key elements of the package include: a $3 million economic development fund, waivers for critical restaurant fees, an expanded entertainment zone, discounted downtown parking, temporary relief of film permit fees and $750,000 in grants from L.A. Metro earmarked for programming around this summer’s FIFA World Cup and the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
In short, this is the most comprehensive economic redevelopment effort the city has undertaken in years, Santa Monica Mayor Caroline Torosis said.
“We have set ourselves apart,” Torosis said. “We have to say, yes, we are not only open for business, but we are making it easy and welcoming and economically prosperous for people to do business in our city.”
Confronting the numbers
Santa Monica – once considered one of the “most vibrant and prosperous coastal cities” in California – finds itself at an inflection point. The economic recovery comes amid hard data. City Manager Oliver Chi, who has become the operational architect of the revitalization effort, doesn’t sugarcoat the starting point.
In fiscal 2018, Santa Monica had about $435.8 million in reserves; those reserves are now about $150 million, according to a city report released in October.
Also, when factoring in not just vacant offices but sublet space and abandoned leases, the city’s office vacancy rate is roughly at 35%, among the highest in Los Angeles County.
Retail vacancies sit around 16%, the highest in decades. What’s more, sales tax revenue dropped 6% and transient occupancy tax – which is levied by cities or counties on travelers who rent lodging for 30 consecutive days – declined 10% during the fiscal year 2024-2025, resulting in an estimated $29.1 million annual deficit for the following fiscal year.
“The center of gravity has shifted away from Santa Monica,” Chi said. “We got knocked down, definitely, the last couple of years. But we have leadership now, both at the City Council and the staff level, who feel like it’s time that we pick ourselves back up.”
The hurdles are not entirely of the city’s own making, Chi and Torosis noted. The city is still enduring the lingering effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. The January 2025 wildfires – which swept through neighboring Pacific Palisades and left many Santa Monica residents and business owners displaced – dealt a blow to Southern California tourism at a critical moment. Then, federal immigration enforcement has cut into the city’s economy, creating a chilling effect on visitors and workers.
International tourism – historically accounting for roughly half of Santa Monica’s visitor economy – has been suppressed by geopolitical tensions, shifting travel sentiment and the broader impact of the current federal administration.
“When you couple that with what’s happening at the federal government level, and folks just don’t want to travel to the U.S. right now internationally, all of that creates an environment that’s challenging,” Chi said.
The $60 million push
Santa Monica’s $3 million push is part of a larger recovery initiative. In October, the city committed to a $60 million reinvestment plan to address a host of issues, including public safety, street maintenance, urban greening, sidewalk repairs and lighting, to name a few. The theory was simple: before attracting private capital, the city had to feel safe, cared for and clean.
Coming into 2026, that bet was paying off faster than expected, Chi said. New programmatic revenues – from parking rate adjustments, a city-run ambulance option, digital signage on the Third Street Promenade and other budget refinements – generated nearly $30 million in new ongoing revenue. That, in turn, stabilized the operating budget ahead of schedule and freed up $3 million from the original reserve fund to establish a first-ever business attraction and economic development fund.
“Historically, Santa Monica, being Santa Monica, we haven’t had to spend a lot of time trying to attract folks, because there were lines of businesses fighting for a place to be here,” Chi said. “That’s not the environment now. So, this next phase of investment is really about: how do we drive economic growth?”
The new $3 million fund will finance tenant improvement incentives, business recruitment and capital renewal studies for Third Street Promenade. Alongside it, the city is waiving its wastewater capacity fee – about $1,000 per seat – for new and expanding restaurants.
“We are making a $60 million bet on ourselves,” said Torosis. “The changes on the Promenade did not happen overnight, and they’re not going to be solved overnight – but we are moving quickly and as uniformly as possible to cut the red tape and put money on the table.”
Entertainment Zone expansion
The council’s package also reflects a fundamental rethinking of what a successful downtown commercial district looks like in 2026. Traditional big-box retail stores are not returning to Third Street Promenade – city leaders recognize that. What draws foot traffic now is experiences: gyms, restaurants, bars, live entertainment and pop-up activations.
The city’s entertainment zone, launched on the Promenade in June as the first of its kind in Southern California, will now expand to cover the entire downtown core, as well as the Pier, Main Street and Montana Avenue. The Zone allows open carry of alcoholic beverages during designated events.
“People want experiences nowadays,” Chi said. Those experiences “drive foot traffic. If you can get some good anchors, that then entices other retailers to come.”
Mayor Torosis noted that the city is seeing early results as evidence that the approach is working – pointing to strong foot traffic during events like Oktoberfest, Dia de los Muertos and the watch party for the 2025 World Series match between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Toronto Blue Jays.
She also noted that many of the measures are simply about getting out of the way. For instance, permit requirements for basic outdoor dining – tables and chairs on the sidewalk – have been eliminated.
Permit turnaround times are 40% faster since October, aided in part by a new pilot of artificial intelligence-enabled plan-check software.
“Santa Monica suffered for a long time from Santa Monica exceptionalism – thinking that we are an amazing place and people should have to jump through all these hoops,” Torosis said. “Well, we can’t afford to be doing that anymore.”
Debbie Lee, chief executive of Downtown Santa Monica Inc., agreed.
“Santa Monica is at an important juncture, and revitalizing downtown requires us to build back intentionally,” Lee said.
Back in the day
For attorney Daniel Berman, who in November relocated his AmLaw 125 firm Wood Smith Henning & Berman to Santa Monica from its longtime Westwood headquarters, the move back to his hometown has been nothing but sunny. Nearly every day, he said he observes more and more young people out and about, going to boutique gyms or restaurants. Soon he’ll be joining that crowd. Berman’s family lost their home in the Palisades Fire last year and he’s preparing to move into a Santa Monica apartment while the rebuild continues.
“We’ve only been in for four or five months, but I’ve already seen a change. I’m seeing new business sprout up. I’ve seen an increased presence of safety personnel,” he said. “It’s been great to see it from our standpoint. We kind of banked on, when we moved, that it would be revitalized, and we’re seeing it.”
The change is something he’s too familiar with. Growing up in Santa Monica in the 1970s and ’80s, Berman said his parents wouldn’t let him go to nearby gathering spots like what was then called the Santa Monica Mall out of fear for his safety.
“Then it was revitalized in the ’90s and it was hot,” he recalled. “There are a few people in the city who are really committed to bringing businesses back and making it a safe environment for people.”
Berman said he felt like city leadership now was working to actually “address the issues, not just cover them up.” He also lauded building landlords in the city for their part in attracting businesses though it was a struggle to find Class A office space for his firm’s move, “despite the reputational issues” plaguing the city. That move has also helped recruitment for the firm, which also opened an El Segundo outpost to bisect its former headquarters and offer a regional option for South Bay-based employees.
“We’ve hired a few attorneys since the start of the year and all of them have really wanted to work in Santa Monica office,” Berman said. “We never got that in Westwood.”
Triplebar Chief Executive Manchester echoed that sentiment, adding that the move to Santa Monica reflects a broader argument about timing, he said. Bay Area biotech investment contracted amid rising interest rates, thus forcing layoffs across the sector. For a company like Triplebar that survived the downturn, that pain created opportunity – specifically, the ability to hire exceptional talent that had nowhere else to go locally.
“We have better talent than we’ve probably ever had,” Manchester said. “There are more people looking for jobs, there are fewer jobs – and so there’s this ability now to shift the center of gravity away from the Bay Area towards a place like Santa Monica, which works really well for us.”
Berman returned his own shared sentiment.
“I’d be really surprised if, in the next couple of years, there isn’t a major rebound for Santa Monica,” he said.
