Sep 16, 2014 10:08 AM EDT By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

Situated in one of the prettiest parts of the nation, the University of Southern California (USC) is planning to spend big money to get even prettier.

According to the Associated Press, the school broke ground on a $650 million project that will add several retail shops, restaurants and more near the campus. The USC Village will continue gentrifying the area around the school's campus as well as create jobs and add new amenities for students.

"In the past four years, we have been privileged to break ground on a number of new projects at USC. But this village is an especially historic moment for USC, for our neighborhood and for Los Angeles as a whole," USC President C. L. Max Nikias said at the ceremony Monday, according to a news release.

Hundreds gathered to watch the ceremony to officially break ground on the project, including Los Angeles officials, students, faculty, local community members and the USC Trojan marching band.

USC Village is scheduled to be completed in 2017 and will include a grocery store, coffee shops, boutiques, various other shops, on-campus housing and a fitness center. The 1.25-million square foot project will replace an unsavory shopping center that was recently torn down to make space for USC Village.

"It will be transformative, not only for the university but for the community," Thomas Sayles, USC's senior vice president for university relations, told the AP. "I think we will have one of the most attractive, most interesting urban campuses in the country, if not the most, when this is completed."

The project is apparently one of the largest in the history of southern L.A. and of the school itself. Officials estimated USC Village will provide up to 12,000 permanent and temporary jobs, at 30 percent of which the school hopes to give to local residents. While the area will be open and accessible to the general public, it will be restricted to students, faculty and authorized guests in late night and early morning hours.

"We are not merely building 'buildings,'" Nikias said in his address. "We are building, for our own time, the best and most timeless kind of human community."

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