Arizona State University held an official groundbreaking ceremony for its forthcoming Arizona Center for Law and Society in downtown Phoenix Thursday.
The 280,000 square-foot building, which will cost $129 million to construct, will contain 18 classrooms, a large lecture hall for undergraduate education and a high-tech courtroom, along with two levels of underground parking. The Ross-Blakley Law Library in Tempe will be moved to the new building and will take up multiple floors, forming the central structure of the building.
Many prominent leaders from ASU and the Phoenix area were present at the official groundbreaking, including ASU President Michael Crow, Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton and former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.
“This is a truly big day for the law school, for the university, for the city and, quite frankly, for the state,” said Douglas Sylvester, dean of the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at ASU.
Without the tremendous leadership involved with the project, it wouldn’t be possible for it to come through, and people like Crow are responsible for making sure things keep moving forward, Sylvester said.
“Not all the great law schools were created 150 or 200 years ago; some were created just 40 years ago or so, and this is one of them, the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law,” Crow said.
Adding to ASU’s downtown presence is not just about bringing people downtown, but about building the type of community that everyone wants to live in, Stanton said.
Crow praised O’Connor for her logic, judgment, determination and focus on fairness. He said it is an inspiration to have the law school named after her.
“It’s just one of the great honors of my life that this law school bears my name,” O’Connor said. “I think in just half a century, the law school has established itself as one of the preeminent legal institutions in the United States, and that movement is not going backwards, it’s going forwards.”
Leo Beus, lead fundraiser for the project, called O’Connor the “real first lady of the United States of America.”
“I think about when I was in law school, how I learned that everything that was important came out of the law school and the legal community,” O’Connor said. “That was my first understanding, and I think after all these years, I still agree that good things that happen seem to come out of the legal community, and I think what has been done here is fabulous.”
Crow said the idea for the new law center came about when Crow and his colleagues realized that there was an insufficient focus on the law process in Arizona.
“We thought one of the things that was missing was that we were not projecting our role as teachers, our role as thinkers, our role as engaged with the community to the extent that we could, and that we needed a new presence, a new place, a new gathering spot,” Crow said. “It should be in downtown Phoenix, the heart of the community.”
Crow said the new location places the law school in a broader setting, where it can engage with the community and be more connected to the judicial system. The new center allows the university to reach out as an educational statement about the law, he said.
“The intent of the design of this structure, the intent of the overall purpose and placement of this structure and of our school is advancement of the law, advancement of the community and success of the community,” Crow said.
This project is different from other university projects because it involves not only the school, but engagement from the city government as well, Crow said.
Although construction on the building began in July, ASU waited until November to have the groundbreaking ceremony to ensure Crow could be there, said Janet Perez, director of communications for the law college. ASU’s current law school has been located at Armstrong Hall in the Tempe campus for almost 50 years.
“Since its founding in 1967 — that’s not too long ago, really — the law school has committed itself to serving the public, and it’s established clinics to help individuals in their own problems and cases,” O’Connor said.
“No other city has invested so heavily in a university the way Phoenix has, and that is a great investment for the future of this community,” Stanton said. “Because of that investment, the work of so many neighborhood leaders, downtown leaders, the community support for building the light rail system, our urban core becomes one of the great downtown revitalization stories in the entire country.”
The Phoenix government is helping fund the project by providing land, as well as $12 million in public donations. Funding also comes from construction bonds through ASU and private donations. The ASU College of Law has raised more than $34 million of its $50 million capital campaign goal, according to a statement from the university.
The Arizona Center for Law and Society will also house the new ASU Alumni Law Group, which is the first teaching law firm associated with a law school, according to the statement.
The building is expected to be ready for classes by fall of 2016. Ennead Architects and Jones Studio are the lead architects on the project, and DPR Construction is the lead builder.
Contact the reporter at Graham.Bosch@asu.edu
