River Park is set to open in the fall of 2026, after beginning construction in April of 2024. The 16-acre athletic campus will feature eight tennis courts, two athletic fields, an Olympic-sized swimming pool and a gymnasium. As of November, the campus’ facilities, costing approximately $200 million, are 85% funded entirely from donations, according to Chief Financial Officer David Weil ’93.
In November 2023, the River Park project was officially approved to start construction after backlash from the Studio City neighborhood over worries about noise, traffic and the loss of formerly accessible space, Weddington Golf & Tennis.
Head of Communications & Strategic Initiatives Ari Engelberg ’89 said backlash lessened after official approval, but there are still some concerns from the neighborhood.
“The opposition from the community was up until the project was approved by the city of Los Angeles,” Engelberg said. “After that, it tapered off dramatically. There continues to be a number of people who live in the neighborhood who have concerns about the impacts of construction, but we have worked down to address those concerns.”
Campaign Director Casey Kim said River Park is an important opportunity for the school as it allows them to give back to the community.
“This is a tremendous opportunity for us to really be able to give back and help those around us, which is something that we have been wanting to do for a long time,” Kim said. “We are grateful for this opportunity. Being a part of the faculty and seeing this project come to life after so much time is incredible.”
The operations at River Park will cost approximately $5 million per year, the majority of costs due to personnel, according to Weil. Weil said River Park will cost about the same to run as the other two campuses and will need staff for various reasons.
“We need personnel to run the facility, to work with the landscaping, operations, maintenance and security,” Weil said. “The construction was mostly paid for by donations from on top of the operating budget. The ongoing operations of River Park will be used from the same operating budget that pays for operations at the Middle and Upper School.”
Weil said the money to pay for operations comes through budget savings, tuition increases and a reserve.
“[The money to fund operations at River Park] is coming through finding ways to save money within our expense budget, and then using those savings,” Weil said. “If we can save $10,000 in where we buy our paper from, then we can shift that to [River Park] without raising tuition at all. If we can save money on paper, if we can save money on credit card processing or if we can save money on utilities efficiency. Increased tuition is a piece of it, and then there may be some reserve that also goes into it.”
Weil said the school has been expecting the increase of operations cost because of the addition of River Park and has started making budget refinements to save money.
“We have known that there’s an expense that’s headed our way and has been heading our way for some years,” Weil said. “We’ve been finding ways to save money within our budget responsibly, so we created a little bit of a cushion. For example, through this process, we look for areas that do not impact the student experience and do not impact what is important to employees, so things around the edges that we have tried to pick out, mostly from just the [general and administrative] end of the budget.”
Since the original $42 million purchase of Weddington Golf & Tennis property in October 2017, the school started a reserve to pay for future operations, according to Weil. Weil said the school started discussing the cost of operations when the golf course was first purchased.
“We, as an administration, and our board of trustees have been talking about [River Park funding] since we first bought the property,” Weil said. “We wanted to plan as far ahead as we could.”
The year River Park was bought, tuition for the school was $37,100. For the 2026-2027 school year, tuition is set at $54,900. Weil said although some money from the raised tuition goes to River Park operations, most goes to essential operations at the school.
“For planning items such as this, the school and its board use a very long horizon,” Weil said. “In this case, it has been more than five years since we have adapted our budget model to reflect anticipated River Park operating costs. Much like minor operational efficiencies and savings add up to a significant figure over time, the tuition adjustments in any given year have been small. It is hard to quantify an amount or percent [of increase tuition that goes to River Park], though it is accurate to say that a far greater share of any recent tuition increase has gone toward employee compensation and benefits, professional development, expanding our financial aid programs and the base operating costs of the existing campuses.”
Director of Financial Aid Greg Gonzalez said tuition increases cause all families, including those on financial aid, to pay more.
“Our average [financial aid] grant is 75% of tuition,” Gonzalez said. “There are exceptions, but for most families their grant will stay the same when tuition increases. So the grant will stay at 75% but the 25% of tuition increases by a small percentage.”
During the 2025-2026 school year, many sports teams switched from shuttles to Chevrolet Suburbans when transporting to games. Weil said the change for small teams to use suburbans is one of the ways the school is saving money.
“When it comes to transportation, such as the use of a CJL shuttle versus a suburban, most of the motivation for that sort of change is just making sure that we get vehicles that have the right capacity for the teams being transported,” Weil said. “It doesn’t make sense to have a significant CJL shuttle with a capacity for 20 or 30 passengers if we are only transporting 10 people and our coaches are going to the game anyway. It’s just as easy for them to drive a Suburban or another school vehicle. Its refinements like that are being done deliberately as part of the kind of budget-saving, budget-minded shifts.”
