|
Posted Nov 9, 2012, 6:39 AM
|
Registered User
|
|
Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 5,095
|
|
Looks like decision to move the Law School is official...
Quote:
b]ASU eyes 2016 Phoenix move for law school[/b]
Arizona State University has decided to relocate the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law from the Tempe campus to downtown Phoenix, with plans to potentially build a six-story, $120 million facility.
University officials hope to open the Arizona Center for Law and Society in 2016, but they need to overcome a few more hurdles before they finalize the deal.
Phoenix would initially provide the land, a block near Polk and First streets, for free for the first 10 years and contribute $12 million to the project, but the city must still approve the deal.
“Downtown Phoenix is the right location for this law school,” Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton said. “Not only is it the legal center of Phoenix, it’s the center of the courts, and it’s the corporate center of Arizona.”
The City Council’s Downtown, Aviation, Economy and Education Subcommittee on Wednesday recommended that the council authorize the city manager to negotiate contracts and agreements with ASU to develop the center.
Wednesday’s meeting was the first time ASU officials had made public their decision to relocate the college. Before this week, university officials would say only that they were considering a move.
“It was an important step, but it’s not a full-scale approval,” said Richard Stanley,ASU’s senior vice president and university planner. “We still have to work our way through the other steps. But we are very excited about the possibility and enthusiastic about this moving forward.”
The Arizona Board of Regents also still has to approve the move. Board members are scheduled to vote on it in December.
The center would include the law school and other public and private research centers benefiting the legal community.
The law school’s presence downtown will expand its influence throughout the Valley, said Douglas Sylvester, dean of the law school.
“The vision for the law school is to be a much more engaged law school in the community,” he said. “We’ve been that way for a while. Law and legal scholars and law students have a much broader impact than people think.”
The move will allow the university to launch new programs that could increase the school’s academic reputation, Sylvester said. The school already attracts the top 10percent of all law-school graduates, he said.
“We’re already quite confident that we’ll move up in the rankings again,” he said. “We think we’ll be solidly in the top 25 and certainly in to the top seven or eight of all publics. But moving downtown isn’t about rankings. It’s about the mission of this law school.”
The project will cost ASU $100 million to $120 million. Stanley said the school will launch a fundraising campaign.
Officials expect enrollment at the law school to increase by 20 to 40 percent. Enrollment for the juris doctorate program, the flagship program that prepares students to be attorneys, will remain constant at about 200 students per class, Sylvester said.
But enrollment will increase in other graduate and online programs.
The center plans to offer continuing education programs for attorneys and to launch more joint-degree programs with other ASU colleges.
This larger student body will generate more tuition to help cover the costs of the project.
“As we grow the university and increase enrollment, revenue from tuition and rate increases, that’s our primary source these days of generating additional resources to do new work,” Stanley said.
But Sylvester said existing students should not fear an increase.
“I’ve been very hopeful that we will not need to seek any tuition increase next year, and any more after that will be very small and related to costs of living more than anything else,” Sylvester said.
Phoenix will contribute the $12 million to the project after the center breaks ground.
“It’s an investment in our future,” Stanton said. “Those are our future leaders. We can not achieve our goals as a city unless we have more people with degrees and more people with advanced degrees. This is not something we can wait for the Legislature to do. We have got to create our own action.”
After the first 10 years, ASU will pay Phoenix $125,000 a year for the next decade for the land not purchased with ASU-related 2006 bond funds.
The university will build the center between Polk, Taylor, First and Second streets. The academic building will occupy three-quarters of the block with the rest of the land reserved for future development, possibly student housing, Stanley said.
Officials have not chosen architects, but preliminary designs suggest a 250,000- to 300,000-square-foot building. The center will include about 200 to 250 parking spaces.
If approved, construction will begin by May 2014.
City officials said the project is expected to create about 1,000 construction-related jobs and generate $1 million in construction sales-tax revenue.
O’Connor will be the second law school in downtown Phoenix. The Phoenix School of Law opened in the Tower at One North Central last year.
ASU's law school will join the Walter Cronkite School of Mass Communication, College of Health Solutions, School of Letters and Sciences, College of Nursing and Health Innovation, College of Public Programs and Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at the Downtown Phoenix campus.
The Phoenix Biomedical Campus is home to the University of Arizona College of Medicine-Phoenix, UA College of Pharmacy, UA College of Public Health, Northern Arizona University physical-therapy program and NAU physician-assistant program.
Stanton said downtown Phoenix will continue to transform into a hub for higher education.
“We are not stopping one bit,” he said. “We know our future is tied to higher education.”
Steve Weiss, a founding member of Downtown Voices Coalition, a group focused on growth and development in downtown Phoenix, said he hopes nearby businesses adjust their schedules and products for an influx of students who are often up late at night.
“What will the local businesses do to create services and business that the incoming student population will use?” Weiss asked.
|
|
|
|