ASU/UofA Downtown Phoenix construction thread

[PHX31]

Does anyone know if there is a bookstore on the downtown ASU campus somewhere? Or, any kind of store that might carry large ASU decals or stickers?

[gymratmanaz]

Yes, right across from Civic Space Park int eh brown ASU building, just south of the Walter Cronkite Building.

[Tito714]

yeah it's called the University Center.

[HX_Guy]

Will be good to see something new start construction. How tall is this thing...anyone know?

$187M health sciences building closing in on reality
Phoenix Business Journal - by Angela Gonzales

The Arizona Board of Regents may be a step closer to building the $187 million Health Sciences Education Building on the Phoenix Biomedical Campus.

The expansion was approved twice by the Arizona Legislature and signed by the governor but was held up pending review by the Joint Committee on Capital Review. The committee doesn’t need to approve the project; it just needs to review it before ground can be broken.

The committee has scheduled a meeting for March 23. The agenda also includes review of general obligation bond project changes for Maricopa Community College District and is scheduled to begin at 8 a.m. in House Hearing Room 4 at the Arizona Legislature.

The health sciences building will be used to train more physicians and strengthen the presence of the University of Arizona College of Pharmacy and other health-related colleges on the campus.

Dr. William Crist, vice president for health affairs for UA, said this is a very happy day for him. “I have been worrying about whether we can move ahead or not,” he said. “It’s been really stressful.”

The meeting, however, could be postponed. But Crist is hopeful that won’t happen.

“It’s on the agenda and they’re scheduled to meet the 23rd,” he said. “They’ve all agreed to do it. I don’t think there’s any problem.”

“I am encouraged by the meeting notice and appreciate Chairman (John) Kavanagh’s and Speaker (Kirk) Adams’ leadership in helping us bring this dream to fruition. The construction will create over 2,000 new jobs which are badly needed in our community. The building is a key to our students’ success” said Ernest Calderon, president of the Arizona Board of Regents

Once the committee reviews the expansion project, the three state universities can sell bonds for the project.

“These bonds give you the necessary money — that is borrowing money — to build the project,” Crist said.

Once the building is completed, the universities will be responsible for the debt service. Part of that will be paid by revenue from the Arizona Lottery funds while 20 percent will be raised privately by the universities.

Construction could begin as soon as April.

“We have permits waiting down at the city,” said David Harris, senior project manager for Arizona Biomedical Collaborative, a partnership between the three state universities.

It could be open as soon as 2012, he said.

The start of the Health Sciences Education Building will be a huge win for Arizona, said Robert Green, president and CEO of the Arizona BioIndustry Association.

“In the short term, construction will provide much-needed jobs in our state,” he said. “Once completed, it will enable the training of doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other medical professionals under one roof, which will put Arizona in the forefront of medical training in the U.S. and help alleviate our state’s shortage of medical professionals.”

For more: www.abor.asu.edu.

[Don B.]

^ Looks like 6-7 stories to me:



http://www.flickr.com/photos/3710430...92904104/show/

--don

[hrivas]

there are a few more pictures here under projects, medical education.
http://www.coarchitects.com/

[combusean]

Originally Posted by Don B.

^ Looks like 6-7 stories to me:



http://www.flickr.com/photos/3710430...92904104/show/

--don

Ew? $190 million for an ugly box that can't figure out which decade hates it more?

[Vicelord John]

I think it looks rather interesting. What the fuck do yoy want instead?

[TAZ4ate0]

Originally Posted by combusean

Ew? $190 million for an ugly box that can't figure out which decade hates it more?

Hey, it is far better than what ASU has done recently at the main campus in Tempe. I'll gladly trade you Hassayampa Academic Village, and Barrett Honors College, for the "ugly box".

[mwadswor]

Originally Posted by TAZ4ate0

Hey, it is far better than what ASU has done recently at the main campus in Tempe. I'll gladly trade you Hassayampa Academic Villiage, and Barrett Honors College, for the "ugly box".

Good point. I actually sort of like it, but whether or not you like it, it certainly looks better than the prison... err... dorms that have been built recently on the Tempe campus.

[combusean]

Other angles show it off better but it rubs me the wrong way and its too fucking short. Architecturally, it fits more with the stuff on the Tempe campus rather than downtown. I wouldn't mind seeing something like ITSB IV instead: taller, with more traditional forms, and an approach to 7th St that doesn't suck.

[HooverDam]

^I actually likes how it looks different than the current BioCampus buildings. I was worried theyd all be the shiny metal stylings of the TGen building. While I like the TGen building, it could get old quick, so Ill be happy to have some variety.

I dont really mind buildings not approaching 7th St and Ave downtown either. I dont think those streets will ever be walkable, pedestrian environments because the roads are mini highways and will always (necessarily probably) be that way. Id rather focus on buildings having good permeable edges facing inward towards the rest of Downtown.

[phxbyrd]

the site plans for this block a couple years ago (which I said were too short) have buildings taller and more tightly packed against the street with some open space in the middle. Now they've gone shorter and set back from the street? Hard to believe. I posted some link back then that there's no reason why medical buildings can't be tall. There was a hospital in England I remember being like 30 stories.

[combusean]

^ They had an original plan like you described, but revised it because they realized research buildings could be larger. I remember talk about that long building directly in front of the existing PUHS buildings 3 or 4 years ago (has it been that long?!) and I'm pretty sure it was twice to three times as expensive but fit the same purpose as the one they're discussing now. Andrew (azndragon837, where are you btw) and maybe HX went to those meetings.



Then this thing comes out along with a revised siteplan that looks suspiciously like the first.


It looks like the parking garage, which correlates to a City Council RFP detailed somewhere in the phoenix dev news thread, is the largest structure on the site--how ironic of this town. There's a much more limited overall density and lot coverage.

Phoenix facepalm: This building will house 110 medical students, the exact same number Tucson has. So we can't grow our campus beyond without making sure Tucson grows as well. Plus, they've stated their preference to train out of state students, so our local/statewide/rural doctor shortage really isn't alleviated at all.

All in all, this project kinda sucks.

[Leo the Dog]

Looks like a great suburban development, almost like our office "parks" scattered about Phoenix.

But, I guess "anything is better than what's currently there." I swear this is the motivating factor on how Phx decides what to build and where.

[phxbyrd]

I have no problem with capping at 110 full time students (although how long have they been at that number? Could be time to expand in Tucson) but that's no reason to limit how much you build on the campus. You need a complete hospital and both academic and private sector research facilities. Furthermore there are two big buildings on the Mercado lot and I think all that square footage should be moved over into making the campus taller. Any parking for the campus should be either pedestal or underground because there's no reason to have a dead parking garage where space is at such a premium.

[AJphx]

I wonder what sort of impact this will have:

http://phoenix.bizjournals.com/phoen...9/daily65.html

ASU withdraws from financial partnership in UA medical school

Arizona State University is withdrawing from its partnership with the University of Arizona for management of the College of Medicine in Phoenix.

UA now is assuming full responsibility for the school.

“We are in the process of calculating what we might save,” said ASU spokesman Virgil Renzulli.

Facing state budget shortfalls, ASU has been looking for ways to cut expenses, he said.

“We will continue to support the medical center,” he said. “We still have faculty participating in the medical school. What we’re not doing is participating as a financial partner.”

Instead, ASU will focus on building research facilities on its Tempe and Mesa campuses, Renzulli said.

ASU will continue to have a presence in the Phoenix Biomedical Campus, which houses the medical college and several bioscience organizations, including the Translational Genomics Research Institute and the International Genomics Consortium. It soon will be home to VisionGate Inc., maker of a cancer detection device.

The UA College of Medicine–Phoenix is in its third year of operation and has 120 medical students. Plans call for building enrollment to 480 medical students and 80 pharmacy students.

Construction has begun on a $187 million Health Sciences Education Building on the Phoenix Biomedical Campus.

The dissolution of the partnership between ASU and UA still needs approval from the Arizona Board of Regents. They will discuss the matter at a special meeting May 1.

[phxbyrd]

For all those trying to convince us the medical complex can't have anything tall; I was crusing the Philadelphia thread since I used to live there and saw that they just completed a Temple University medical building that's 11 stories and 480,000 ft of space. I don't know how tall but it makes what we are proposing (aparently building) look like a turd.

[Vicelord John]

Anything in Phoenix is going to be a turd compared to a big city like Philly.

[phxbyrd]

I've lived in both places nad believe me there are plenty of places and time when I feel Phoenix is plenty big. The state of Pennsylvania is in bad financial trouble and the city of Philadelphia is in deficit and debt. Temple University is a state school so how can it be explained that they keep on building and we don't? To me it's because there they want to be a big city.
They are so tired of being second fiddle to New York and Boston and it's not good enough to be better than Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Hartford. They want to be associated with the former and not the latter. Further the crap ASU building that is going to be built (gag) would not have been approved there. They would have looked at the rendering, spit or thrown up and asked if this was a joke and told them to come back with an eleven story, street facing 480,000 sqft attractive building.