For most of this year, the strip of ground behind Whizin Market Square was a concrete drainage channel. Cars passed it on Agoura Road without registering it as anything but infrastructure, the kind of flood-control ditch every foothill city keeps tucked behind its shopping centers. On August 19, it became a park.
That timing matters more than it looks. Six weeks after the ribbon-cutting, Agoura Hills is about to hold its oldest annual event, Reyes Adobe Days. The festival didn't move. The ground around it did.
The Channel Nobody Photographed Until August
The Ladyface Greenway sits on top of a former Los Angeles County flood channel, running from the Whizin Market Square driveway to Cornell Road along Agoura Road. It gives the city its first park south of the 101 Freeway, a distinction that had nothing to do with land availability and everything to do with what that particular acre used to be used for.
What opened is more than a walking path. The greenway includes bicycle facilities and equestrian trail improvements, bike parking and repair stations, seating areas, butterfly gardens, and an art walk with educational signage tied into Agoura High School's Civic Engagement Program. The engineering underneath does real work too: bioswales built to treat 1,100 cubic feet of stormwater, planted with a native palette chosen to support pollinators rather than just look tidy.
None of it happened quickly. Community outreach workshops ran through 2020, design work began in 2021, the county issued a construction permit in May 2023, and the city broke ground on July 30, 2024. In its coverage of the dedication, The Acorn quoted Agoura Hills Public Works Director Charmaine Yambao calling the finished project "a labor of love for all of us." Two equestrians tested the new trail that day, a detail that matters more than it seems for a city built around riding routes that don't always connect to each other.
A 22-Year-Old Festival Meets a Six-Week-Old Park
According to a report by The Acorn, Reyes Adobe Days turns 22 this year, running October 2 through 4 at the Reyes Adobe Historical Site. The weekend still centers on the things it always has: historical demonstrations, pony rides, a petting zoo, the Wings of Discovery animal exhibit, blacksmith demonstrations, a drum circle, and food trucks covering barbecue, Mexican food, and ice cream. NBC4 reporter Brittany Hope, who joined KNBC in 2024 and has picked up five regional Emmy Awards along the way, serves as this year's Grand Marshal.
The Saturday parade begins at 10 a.m. at the intersection of Reyes Adobe Road and Lake Lindero Drive and runs a mile down Reyes Adobe Road to the Adobe itself, the same course it has run for years. But the RAD 5K on Sunday morning starts and ends at Whizin Market Square, meaning runners gather at 8:30 a.m. at the exact spot where the new greenway now has an entrance.
Night at the Adobe, the Friday evening portion of the weekend, adds its own wrinkle. It's a 21-and-over evening of live music, food, local artisans, and craft beer and wine from Malibu Brewing Company, priced at $20 in advance with no added fees. Ahead of the main weekend, the city also held its Fiesta Luncheon on September 24 at the Agoura Hills Recreation and Event Center, with food, entertainment, and a costume contest. Organizers expect the full festival to draw more than 10,000 people over the three days.
None of these events were rerouted because of the greenway. They were scheduled the way they've always been scheduled. But this is the first year any of them land next to a finished park instead of a flood channel, which means the runners lining up at Whizin on Sunday morning will be beside the new greenway entrance.
Whizin Was Built Facing the Other Way
A report by The Acorn describes Whizin Market Square as Agoura Hills' closest thing to a downtown for decades, anchored by The Canyon, which has drawn live-music fans to its stage for more than 25 years. Calabasas-based Tucker Investment Group, led by Bill Tucker, has owned the center since 2006. The property's steeple-like clocktower dates to 1973, built to replace an old supermarket on the same site.
The greenway's arrival puts Whizin in an odd position. Most of the center's tenants currently face away from it. The businesses along the south side of the shopping center were built with their back doors toward what used to be a drainage channel, for the obvious reason that nobody designs a storefront to face a flood control easement. Now that the channel is a park with foot traffic, Whizin is working with the city on plans to cut storefronts into that side, giving tenants direct access to parkgoers instead of forcing them around to the front lot. Tucker was on hand for the August dedication. In its report on Whizin Market Square, The Acorn quoted him saying: "My niche has always been what I call pedestrian-friendly environments."
The bigger structural change is happening across the street. A four-story project called Regency Center is rising at the northwest corner of Agoura and Cornell roads, on the site where the city's last movie theater once stood. It will bring 278 new apartments to the block, with occupancy anticipated in August 2027. The building includes ground-floor commercial space expected to house a coffee shop, and the former FedEx building on the same site is likely to hold two more restaurants. By next year's Reyes Adobe Days, the parade and the 5K will both be running past a residential building full of people who don't live in Agoura Hills yet.
New Doors Already Opening Nearby
The dining scene around Whizin has already started shifting ahead of the apartments. Howdy's opened on March 3, 2026, in the space formerly occupied by Jinky's Kanan Cafe next to Trader Joe's, serving a mix of Mexican and Japanese dishes from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. It's the second location for the concept, following an original in Malibu. Inside Whizin itself, Sunrose California Eatery serves brunch all day, built around California coastal cooking and Roman-style flatbreads.
Both are filling storefronts along a corridor that's about to see more foot traffic than it has in years, first from a festival weekend that routes runners past a six-week-old park, and eventually from several hundred new neighbors moving in across the street.
What This Weekend Actually Tests
Reyes Adobe Days remains centered at the Reyes Adobe Historical Site, while its Sunday 5K starts and ends at Whizin Market Square beside the new greenway. Whether the greenway becomes the connective piece that ties Whizin's dining and retail into the festival's foot traffic, or just a quieter side path that runners pass without much notice, gets its first real answer starting October 2.
If you're watching how this stretch of Agoura Hills is reshaping itself, from the greenway to the Regency Center apartments to what's filling the storefronts in between, Angela Waters tracks these changes as part of daily work in the Conejo-adjacent foothill markets. Schedule a Free Consultation if you'd like to talk through what any of it means for a property near this corridor.
