The temple's location, on a striking site in Bel Air, near Mulholland Drive and Sepulveda Boulevard, contributed to its continuing growth and success. The location, in the Santa Monica Mountains between the Westside and the San Fernando Valley, meant that the temple could attract membership from the growing Jewish population on both sides of the mountains. In order to develop the property, the temple was required to remove of the existing mountain; the resulting dirt was then used to level the adjoining property, which was acquired for the new campus of the University of Judaism, then located on Sunset Boulevard. The wild area around the Sepulveda Pass eventually developed into an institutional corridor with a number of schools and cultural facilities, including the temple's expanding educational ventures, which came to include Stephen S. Wise Temple Elementary School and a pre-school (now collectively called Wise School), and Milken Community High School. (On March 25, 2011, Milken Community High School and Stephen S. Wise Temple announced that the school would become independent from the temple, effective July 1, 2012.)