"The city decides when it gives approval for certain things, so River Park's opening will probably be sometime towards the end of this calendar year or the beginning of next."
That's how Beth Slattery, Harvard-Westlake's Head of Upper School, explained it to the student paper in late August. The Harvard-Westlake Chronicle reported that River Park's opening had moved from fall 2026 to early 2027. Construction is close to done, but the site still needs its final inspections and a certificate of occupancy from the city.
The old Weddington Golf & Tennis site at Whitsett and the river has been behind fencing since 2024, and you can see more of it now. The question for neighbors has shifted from what's being built to what they'll be able to walk into, and when. How much of River Park belongs to Studio City depends less on the fence than on the clock. The public schedule is built around the hours the school uses the site, so neighbors get the mornings, the late evenings and the path along the river.
Built, but not open yet
A Los Angeles Times tour piece published July 29 listed what's there. The $200 million project has underground parking, an 8,200-square-foot weight room, two gyms, a 52-meter pool, eight tennis courts and two all-weather turf fields. It also has a cafeteria, community rooms and more than 150 security cameras. The Times reported the same early-2027 target for activity to begin.
The school's own construction log shows the last stretch of work. In early September, crews were planting several thousand understory plants and shrubs along the west and south property lines, acid-washing the pathways, applying the final colored surface coat to the tennis courts and installing the main driveway gate on Valleyheart next to the fire station. By September 25, metal bleachers were going up at Field A and the pool, and crews were doing a final round of tree trimming around the whole perimeter. The top half of the sound-blocking construction fence along Valley Spring Lane and Bellaire was coming down. The bottom half stays up until construction is finished.
So when you see open sightlines and finished courts from Bellaire, the site isn't open yet. The remaining step is paperwork with the city, and the school has called that part out of its control.
A park that runs on a clock
The school's FAQ says that during the school year, Harvard-Westlake will generally use the athletic facilities from 1 p.m. to 8 p.m., with most use between 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. All outdoor competition ends before 8 p.m., and no football games will be played on site. The public hours are arranged around that afternoon block.
| Time of day | What the school has said will be open to the public |
|---|---|
| 7 a.m. to 9 a.m., weekdays, September–May | Individual lap swimming in the pool |
| 7 a.m. to noon, weekdays, September–May | Individual use of Field B and the track |
| 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. | Tennis courts, generally, when the school isn't using them |
| 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. | Peak school use; the park, path and clubhouse stay open |
| 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. | Tennis courts again, generally |
| 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., every day of the year | The public park and the clubhouse |
The tennis schedule shows the pattern most clearly. The courts are open to the public in general from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. and again from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. The gap sits right inside the school's busiest hours. The FAQ says the public will have the courts "a majority of the time." If you used to play an early weekday game at Weddington, the new schedule gives you that slot. A 4 p.m. game is the one it doesn't.
The lights follow the same timetable. The plan caps outdoor lighting at 600 hours a year. Field lights go off by 8 p.m. and tennis lights by 9 p.m. on days they're in use, and the school says the fixtures are shielded LEDs designed to keep light from spilling outside the site. The FAQ compares that with more than 2,000 hours a year under the old driving range, where the lights stayed on until 11 p.m. every day. For the houses on Valley Spring and Bellaire, nights on the site should get darker and quieter earlier than they were for years.
Three ways to use it
"Public access" covers three different levels, and the approval documents treat each one differently.
- Walk-in and free. The school describes a six-acre public park with plazas, wooded areas, trails and seating. Its FAQ says the park will be open daily from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. The city's project description puts publicly accessible open space at 5.4 acres of the 17.2-acre site. You can walk in from the Zev Yaroslavsky LA River Greenway or through the visitor entrance off Whitsett Avenue. The clubhouse, café and putting green are part of the public offer too.
- Scheduled, for individuals. This tier covers the tennis courts, lap swimming and Field B with the track, each during the windows in the table above.
- By agreement, for groups. The fields, pool and gym are available to community groups when Harvard-Westlake athletes aren't using them. The city's approval conditions require groups to be pre-approved, run supervised activities with trained staff or coaches, carry liability insurance and hold a current written agreement with the school. Organized use of the recreation facilities may cost a fee. The path, putting green, café and clubhouse are exempt from that fee.
For a family, those three tiers work very differently. A morning walk to the café needs nothing. A morning swim needs the right weekday and month. A youth soccer league needs an organization, insurance and a contract. The Times described the first year as likely to involve trial and error over how to use the facilities, how traffic flows and how to welcome the public during the school day. Expect the rules on paper to get tested once people start showing up.
The parts of Weddington that stay
The walk-in tier is also where most of the old Weddington lives on. The approved plan keeps the historic clubhouse, the putting green, the low brick wall and the golf-ball-shaped light standards. The golf course, driving range and old tennis facility are gone, replaced by two athletic fields, a pool, a gym and eight new courts. The par-3 course isn't coming back. The golf balls survive only as light fixtures.
Café Southwest is returning. The FAQ says it will reopen in the remodeled clubhouse with a new kitchen and more seating. The construction team planned to do that improvement first, hoping to open the clubhouse and café before the rest of the campus. The Times describes the café as privately run. The school hasn't published a reopening date for the café on its own. Since the whole site is waiting on one certificate of occupancy, the safest assumption is that the café opens on the same early-2027 timeline as everything else.
Whitsett in the meantime
You'll notice the project on Whitsett before you ever walk through a gate. The school's notice scheduled work to begin September 12 on Whitsett and Valley Spring Lane, with a partial lane closure from Valley Spring to the fire station. The sidewalk on that stretch is closed behind concrete K-rails. The school says the work fixes sidewalk that tree roots had pushed up by 12 inches or more in places, moves the sidewalk farther onto school property and adds more landscaping, including native oaks. As of September 25, the school estimated about six more weeks of that work.
The traffic plan for after opening is already written down. The site has 403 parking spaces, 386 underground and 17 on the surface, and every car enters and leaves from Whitsett. School shuttles have to run north on Coldwater Canyon, turn right on Moorpark and right again on Whitsett. Visitors are told to come up Whitsett from Ventura Boulevard. Anyone found parking on neighborhood streets can lose permission to use River Park. The construction hotline is 818-487-6611, and the email is [email protected].
The other project on the same timeline
River Park isn't the only big recreation project in Studio City aiming for early 2027. The Studio City Neighborhood Council's September 11 update says the Beeman Park and Studio City Recreation Center project is still on track for completion and a grand opening in early 2027. Meanwhile, the playground is closed so the Bureau of Engineering can work near the access ramp by the Rec Center building. A temporary ramp at a second location will let the playground reopen during normal park hours for the rest of construction.
Along the river, the council supported the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority's plan to remove invasive non-native palm trees from the Zev Yaroslavsky Greenway, citing fire risk, water use and native habitat. That's the same greenway that becomes one of River Park's two public entrances.
Before any of this opens, the busiest Saturday morning on this block is likely to be at the firehouse. LAFD Station 78 at 4041 Whitsett Ave., next to the new Valleyheart gate, holds its third annual open house and firefighters' pancake breakfast on October 17 from 8 to 11 a.m. Tickets are $10.
If you live near Whitsett and want to know how River Park's early-morning schedule, the walk-in café and the traffic plan will shape your street once it opens, Danny Hizami is happy to talk through the block-by-block details over coffee.
