New Park Space
 

Here's an article from this mornings AZ Republic. Maybe this will help offset the loss of Patriots Square Park. :shrug:

Funds OK'd for planning of civic space

Ginger D. Richardson
The Arizona Republic
Feb. 17, 2007 12:00 AM
PHOENIX - City Council members have taken the first official step toward designing and building a new civic space in downtown Phoenix.

The council on Wednesday agreed to pay EDAW Inc. just under $200,000 to design a plan for the 2.7-acre park-like area that would be just south of the U.S. Post Office between Central and First avenues. Phoenix officials think the space is crucial to the success of Arizona State University's downtown campus and to the city's overall revitalization plans for the area.

The civic space is envisioned as a gathering place for university students as well as residents and workers. Phoenix and ASU officials have said they don't have any preconceived ideas of what features the park area should contain but have indicated that it should include green space and areas for visitors to sit, talk, eat and perhaps listen to music.

Jeff Bentz, a senior associate at EDAW, said Thursday that the company will begin holding meetings in March to seek public input on the project. EDAW, which has offices around the country, including downtown Phoenix, has extensive experience in park and urban civic space design, including Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta.

About $30 million was set aside for the civic space when Phoenix voters gave approval last March to fund the project as part of a bond program.

Another new construction about to start!

http://dpc.asu.edu/groundbreaking.jpg

http://cronkite.asu.edu/about/images...bldg_feb07.jpg

That's the first rendering I've seen of it, looks great. It's going on an empty lot, right?

Yes, it's going on what is now a surface parking lot, although from the rendering it looks like it will probably go on only half of the lot. I'm guessing the remainder of the blcok will stay a parking lot?

http://www.nitnelav.com/ASUDowntownNew.JPG

Cronkite School breaks ground in downtown Phoenix
 

The Business Journal of Phoenix - 4:34 PM MST Wednesday, February 21, 2007
by Chris Casacchia
The Business Journal
http://phoenix.bizjournals.com/phoen...ml?jst=b_ln_hl

The Walter Cronkite School of Mass Communication at Arizona State University broke ground Wednesday morning on a six-story, 223,000-square-foot complex at Central Avenue in downtown Phoenix.

Cronkite, long-time anchor of the "CBS Evening News" and dubbed "the most trusted man on television," was joined by Arizona State University President Michael Crow, Gov. Janet Napolitano, Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon, Dean Christopher Callahan and KAET General Manager Greg Giczi for the journalism school's historic launch.

"Michael Crow is a true visionary of our time. He took the reins of this university and gave it a new direction and energy beyond anyone's imagination," Cronkite said. "Together with Dean Callahan, these two inspiring leaders are working to make our journalism school the best in the land. I'm grateful beyond measure to those who made this dream a reality."

The facility at 411 N. Central Ave. will open in fall 2008. The Cronkite School's portion of the building will be five times the size of its current home at the Tempe campus. The 100,000-square-foot space will be equipped with four digital newsrooms, seven multimedia computer labs, two TV studios, four classrooms and a 150-seat auditorium for large public forums. It also will house offices for the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism and the New Media Innovation Lab -- two recent additions to the Cronkite School.

"Having the Cronkite School in Phoenix makes so much sense and offers so many educational opportunities," Gordon said. "Locating right in the middle of the government corridor and most of the major media outlets will allow journalism students to essentially have a laboratory that is as big as downtown Phoenix itself."

More than 200 people attended the event.

ASU Downtown Phoenix construction thread
 

With both the ASU Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and the ASU Downtown Dorms now under way, here are some pictures of the projects so far and a place for furture updates.


Walter Cronkite School of Journalism

http://cronkite.asu.edu/about/images...bldg_may07.jpg

- Six stories, 110-feet tall
- Ground floor retail facing Central Avenue, First Street and Taylor Street Mall

LIVE Webcam: http://cronkitebuilding.asu.edu/


June 7th, 2007:

http://www.nitnelav.com/DowntownJune7/DT5.jpg


ASU Downtown Dorms

http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/7...ndorms1ak1.jpg
http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/8...ndorms2ye9.jpg

High resolution image: http://img442.imageshack.us/my.php?i...ndorms1ch3.jpg

- 13 stories, 161-feet tall (according to Don B.'s chart)


http://www.nitnelav.com/DowntownJune7/DT3.jpg

http://www.nitnelav.com/DowntownJune7/DT1.jpg

Has it been made public knowledge what they are going to do w/ the Ramada Inn/ResComm once the dorm 'towers' are built? It sure is a waste of space, I'd love to see it knocked down and replaced w/ something denser/taller.

Cool thread. Thanks for starting it. I hadn't seen the renderings of the dorms yet, so that's cool too. Which street is that in the foreground of the first dorm rendering (just trying to get an idea of how the buildings will face) and also, is that older, one-story white building in the second rendering really going to stay there?

As for the Ramada Inn that's currently being used as housing, I can't imagine that they'd keep it there after the dorms are complete. If the Taylor Street Mall becomes what they hope it will, that property will be far too valuable as retail space to be left as a decaying motel. Does anyone know if ASU actually owns the site or are they just leasing it until the dorms are complete. I'd be much more comfortable with a private owner doing something with it than I would with ASU holding it after they've just completed a couple hundred million dollars worth of projects. They might not be ready to build anything else for awhile after that.

I don't think ASU owns it, unless this was a recent transaction. Didn't someone have plans to knock it down and build a 50 floor tower on it a couple of years ago?

I think there was mention of that in that same article about the Trump group wanting to redo the north part of the AZ Center and put two towers on it.

:previous: I think you're right...I recalled that as well. Awe, the Trump tease :cool:
I think it would be a very astute move for The Donald to develop an iconic tower in an up-and-coming western US city (I don't count casino/hotels in Vegas). It would be huge for his company and for Phoenix.

That is 1st St that the dorms are facing, and the white building is the Youth Theatre that is not only staying, but also has plans to grow bigger.

Permit# S-T448074 Issue Date Expires 6/17/09
Permit Description STRUCTURAL SUPERSTRUCTURE PACKAGE
Project 07-747 ASU DOWNTOWN STUDENT HOUSING

Scope of Work: COMMERCIAL NEW

DESCRIPTION OF WORK: (Super-Structure Plans)
A 370,000SF PROJECT IN DOWNTOWN CORE DISTRIC CONSISTING OF 2 HIGH-RISE DORMITORY TOWERS W/ A SINGLE STORY CAFETERIA/DINING COMPONENT BETWEEN THE TOWERS. ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICE AND RETAIL SHELL SPACE AT GROUND LEVEL OF THE TOWERS. EACH TOWER IS 13 LEVELS TALL, A PARTIAL LEVEL, BELOW GRADE CONTAINS UTILITY SPACES & A MECHANICAL PENTHOUSE WILL BE PROVIDED AT ROOF LEVEL.

THIS PERMIT IS FOR MAIN STRUCTURAL BUILDING COMPONENTS

I didn't even know they broke ground on the dorms. That is great. Is that a tower crane about to go up? It looks like there is a long blue base of a tower crane resting on its side.

Two things I'm wondering about the dorms:

They are building the towers one at a time right? Its a 2 phase deal?

Where is the parking? It doesn't seem like the 'towers' have a garage anywhere, there isn't going to be an underground garage, etc. Is ASU going to be building a big garage somewhere? A surface lot? Obviously some of the students won't have cars, but I'm sure a fair number will. I wish there was an underground garage.

I came across an old Republic article while I was looking into the parking situation. I couldn’t find anything about parking for the dorms except "Plan in progress", but I did find something interesting about the School of Journalism.

So, did ASU scrap the underground parking or is this referring to something else? Maybe they thought the project wouldn’t finish on time if they built the garage.

I sure hope they didn't scrap plans for underground parking just to meet artificial deadlines. That seems like cutting off your nose to spite your face. The more buildings that go up without any included parking just means that there has to be more land used for surface parking or parking structures. 20+ floors of student apartments is clearly going to require several hundred parking stalls. Maybe ASU will be as stupid with this development as they were with the recently completed Hassayampa Academic Village that looks like it would house a couple thousand students and has zero included parking.

ASU film school. Anyone know if this is any good? My nephew and I took a tour of ASU yesterday; he's considering it for its film school but I can't figure out if it's good or not.

If you know, can you send me PM? Thanks.

I don't know too much about the ASU film school specifically (it didn't exist when I was there), but I did go to film school so if you have any general questions you can PM me. The main thing I would recommend about a film school is that the most important thing is making connections, so going to a school in LA is probably the best idea, if he's wanting to be living/working in LA someday.

Is this a good place to post about the Downtown/ASU Civic Space, on Central? They're holding a public meeting on Tuesday evening to discuss.

Courtesy Dateline Copper Square from coppersquare.com