Over the past 10 years, Arizona State University’s Downtown Phoenix campus has evolved and helped bring life into downtown Phoenix.
The campus first opened for classes in 2006 with approximately 3,000 students taking courses, a number that would double by 2009. Today the campus has about 12,000 students enrolled and more than 2,000 faculty and staff, according to a report from Downtown Phoenix Inc.
“Before 2008 there was a mass exodus at 5 p.m. in downtown Phoenix, Monday through Friday,” said Jill Johnson, manager of Phoenix Rising Tours and one-time program coordinator for ASU. “If you went downtown and there wasn’t a Suns game or Diamondbacks game it was pretty dead. You would have traffic coming into the city to work, and then people would just be leaving at 5 p.m.”
In the last decade alone, ASU’s Downtown Phoenix campus has grown by nearly 4,000 students, said Mary Hyduke, specialist senior at ASU’s University Office of Institutional Analysis.
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Community growth
Some credit the university’s ever-expanding campus has helped grow the downtown Phoenix community.
“I do believe that (the Downtown campus) along with the light rail … really spurred the growth and change that you see in downtown,” said Wellington “Duke” Reiter, the senior advisor to the president at ASU and a leader in the planning and development of the campus.
The area’s population grew by about 10,000 people from 2012 to 2016, according to the Change in Central Phoenix report compiled by the Morrison Institute for Public Policy. Since the year 2000, more than 6,000 residential units have been built downtown, and as of 2018, more than 2,000 additional units were under construction, according to a report by Downtown Phoenix Inc.
Due to the increase of students at the campus and a recent lack of beds at Taylor Place, the campus residence hall, many students have leased apartment units from complexes targeted toward students and young professionals, like Roosevelt Point and Skyline Lofts Apartment Homes.
“The businesses around (ASU’s Downtown campus) responded,” Johnson said. “A lot of restaurants especially in the Roosevelt Row Arts District are staying open longer.”
Rick Naimark, the associate vice president for program development planning at ASU, said the Downtown campus helped the area become more of a “24-hour downtown.”
More than 190 bars and restaurants have opened their doors in the area since 2008, according to the Downtown Phoenix Inc. report.
“This relationship that we have with the city of Phoenix, which helped to make the campus come into being, has proven to be as good — if not even better — than anybody could have ever imagined, and I think the city would say the same thing,” Reiter said.
In 2010, a few restaurants like Hsin Cafe, which is now closed, and El Portal Mexican Grill began to participate in the Maroon and Gold Dollars system and saw an increase in sales.
“Our buildings literally open up onto the street, we’re a part of the city, we’re not a place apart, not a walled campus, not a remote zone of the city that people are not welcome to, we’re quite the opposite,” Reiter said.
Future expansion
Reiter said there are a number of sites that are likely to get ASU developments, especially near Civic Space Park. The university also has a long-term goal to expand its presence in the arts district, having students go back and forth from the district to campus.
A new building on Polk Street between First and Second streets is in the works for the Thunderbird School of Global Management. Construction is expected to be finished by January 2021.
ASU President Michael Crow has mentioned plans for a new residence hall near the Lincoln Family YMCA on First Avenue. Naimark said the expanding student population has led to a need for more housing.
“We have continued growth in student body downtown in almost every program and we will anticipate that more of our students will be living downtown,” Naimark said. “We are planning for more student-oriented housing.”
A timeline of ASU developments and programs over the decade
2009: Taylor Place adds its second tower, adding 544 beds. The College of Nursing and Health Innovation moves to its new downtown building. Civic Space Park, the A.E. England Building and ASU Preparatory Academy open. The School of Criminology and Criminal Justice and the School of Social Work relocate downtown, and the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication celebrates its first year on campus.
2010: Arizona PBS begins airing the Cronkite School’s Cronkite NewsWatch daily. More than 8,000 students are enrolled at the campus.
2011: The Cronkite School begins accepting Ph.D. students, and the first solar power grid is placed on the school’s roof.
2012: The College of Health Solutions moves to the Downtown campus.
2013: The Student Center, located in the historic U.S. Post Office, and the Sun Devil Fitness Complex open. Enrollment at the campus reaches 10,000.
2014: Arizona PBS joins the Cronkite School. The Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts’ graduate studio arts programs move to downtown’s Warehouse District.
2016: Sandra Day O’ Connor College of Law and the Beus Center for Law and Society are added to the campus. ASU partners with the Westward Ho and establishes the Collaboratory on Central, a teaching clinic for nursing, social work, nutrition and nonprofit students.
2017: Cronkite launches Cronkite Noticias and an online program for business journalism and digital audiences.
2018: The Thunderbird School of Global Management relocates to the Downtown campus. The College of Public Service is renamed to Watts College of Public Service and Community Solutions.
2019: The Cronkite School launches the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism.
Contact the reporter at jpbeltra@asu.edu.
