Walk past AMC The Grove 14 on a Saturday night this summer and you'll likely see a line spilling past the dancing fountain, not for a movie but for the new New Balance flagship that opened July 30. It's the brand's first permanent West Coast store, a two-story, 4,400-square-foot space with a curved staircase and a room dedicated entirely to its Made in USA line, and it debuted an exclusive sneaker colorway before releasing it everywhere else on August 1. That's genuine news, and it photographs well.
But the project that will actually change how you park, walk, and grocery shop at Third and Fairfax isn't inside The Grove at all. It's across Fairfax Avenue, where an eight-story building that broke ground in late 2022 is finishing its residential half this month, while the retail underneath, including a much bigger Whole Foods, is still catching up.
Three flagships in seven months
Start with what's easy to see. The Grove has spent the first half of 2026 swapping familiar mall tenants for brand showcases:
| Store | Opened | Footprint |
|---|---|---|
| REVOLVE | January 13, 2026 | 8,450 sq ft, two stories |
| Ralph Lauren | June 2026 | Sixth Los Angeles location |
| New Balance | July 30, 2026 | 4,400 sq ft, two levels |
REVOLVE's permanent store opened as an immersive retail concept rather than a standard boutique. Ralph Lauren followed with its sixth Los Angeles store, joining locations already on Melrose Avenue and at Century City. New Balance closed the run with a flagship built around storytelling and community programming rather than just shelf space, complete with a listening lounge and a café pop-up during its opening weekends.
Three flagships in seven months is not a coincidence. It's a tenant strategy. The Grove has been positioning itself less as a place to run errands and more as a stage where national brands launch West Coast moments. If you live nearby, you've probably felt that shift already: fewer quick in-and-out visits, more events worth planning an evening around.
What's actually rising at the intersection
Across the street, a different kind of change has been under construction since the ground was cleared in late 2022. The eight-story building at 6300 W. Third Street pairs 311 apartments, called The Daphne, with a ground-floor retail component called Bloom on Third. A permit-tracking report published in July put The Daphne's opening in August, which means the residential tower is arriving this month even though the retail underneath it is not. Holland Partner Group built the apartments, while Regency Centers and the Arba Group are handling the roughly 84,000 square feet of retail beneath it.
The retail anchor is a new, larger Whole Foods. The existing store at Third and Fairfax runs 41,000 square feet on one level. The new one will span two levels and roughly 65,000 square feet, and the same July report has that move landing by the end of the year, months after residents start moving into The Daphne upstairs. If you've shopped that Whole Foods on a Sunday and fought for a parking spot, this is the number that matters more than any store opening across the street: nearly 60 percent more retail floor inside the same footprint of land, just not ready on the same timeline as the apartments above it.
The project also adds pedestrian infrastructure that didn't exist before. According to the Larchmont Chronicle, the development includes a pedestrian paseo connecting Ogden Drive through the ground floor to the existing shopping center, plus new crosswalks at Third Street and Ogden Drive, at Gilmore Drive and Ogden, and across Fairfax near Blackburn Avenue. None of that shows up in a store-opening press release, but it's the difference between crossing Third Street at a marked signal and cutting through a parking lot the way most people do now.
How the neighborhood got the eight-story version
None of this looked inevitable a few years ago. When the project was first entitled in 2018, the developer proposed a 26-story tower on the site. Residents, nearby businesses, and then-Councilman David Ryu pushed back hard enough that the plan was scaled down, an environmental impact report was completed, and the City Council approved a much smaller building in 2022. What's under construction now, eight stories instead of twenty-six, is the direct result of that fight.
Two other details from that process are still visible on the ground. In 2020, the property owners built a 10-foot masonry block wall between Hancock Park Elementary School and the service areas of Whole Foods and CVS to address noise concerns raised by the school. And when demolition finally happened on the buildings east of the existing Whole Foods, it was timed to the school's summer break in 2022. One of those demolished buildings was the longtime home of Andre's Italian Restaurant, which has since reopened at 5400 Wilshire Boulevard in the historic Dominguez Building in the Miracle Mile.
If you've wondered why a restaurant you used to walk to now requires a short drive, that's the answer. The corner didn't just get smaller than originally planned. It got rebuilt around a school that was there first.
Where the regulars still eat
While all of this construction has been happening next door, the Original Farmers Market has stayed largely untouched. It's operated at Third and Fairfax since 1934, and the vendor mix inside still rewards a slow visit rather than a scheduled one. Pampas remains the kilo-style Brazilian stall where a stacked plate of feijoada and churrasco meats is worth the wait. Ettore, a full-service Italian spot with a back patio overlooking the Whole Foods parking lot, still pours a long list of natural wines. Michelina Artisan Boulanger is the move before 11 a.m. if you want a French bakery counter that feels like a quiet sidewalk cafe despite sitting in the middle of a market that's operated since 1934. And Friends & Family Pizza, tucked on the market's west side, still turns out New York-style slices fast enough to beat the previews at the AMC next door.
None of these businesses are new. That's the point. While The Grove rotates through flagship launches and the corner across the street gets rebuilt from the ground up, the market in between keeps operating on the same rhythm it always has.
What's actually on the calendar this month
If you're deciding how to spend the rest of August near Third and Fairfax, here's what's dated and current rather than evergreen mall copy:
- LANEIGE Wonder Lab takes over for a single day today, August 10, noon to 9 p.m.
- Kids Club with Apple TV continues Wednesday mornings through August 26
- Madison at David Yurman is on view through September 8
- Little Tikes Sweet Spaces pop-up lands August 15 and 16
- The Grove's weekend live music series continues Friday through Sunday through September 6
Meanwhile, the Original Farmers Market runs its own Thursday-night Summer Music Series at the Market Plaza from 7 to 9 p.m., a tradition that predates every flagship opening across the fountain and will likely outlast this year's tenant rotation too.
The corner worth watching
The easy story this year is that The Grove landed three national flagships in seven months and became more of a destination than ever. That's true, and it's worth knowing if you're planning a weekend around a new store opening. But the corner that will actually change your daily errands, your grocery trip, and how you cross the street on foot is the one where new residents are set to move in this month, months ahead of the bigger Whole Foods and the signaled crosswalks they were promised.
Homes by Marlyse tracks changes like this across Hancock Park, Larchmont, and the blocks in between, not because a bigger grocery store changes anyone's mortgage, but because knowing what's actually shifting on your street is part of understanding the neighborhood you've chosen. If you want to talk about what's happening near your specific block, Let's Connect.
