ASU will expand into downtown Los Angeles
Arizona State University is boosting its footprint in Los Angeles, another expansion in a major city outside the school’s home state.
The university announced its plan Tuesday to renovate and move into the former Herald Examiner newspaper building in downtown Los Angeles.
ASU plans to move into the building, which has been largely vacant for decades, in 2020. ASU has housed some programs, like journalism and film, at its California Center in Santa Monica since 2013.
ASU also has a partnership with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art which aims to train new museum leaders and diversify museum professions.
The new venture will expand programs and the school’s presence in California.
Increasingly, California students are taking an interest in ASU. Enrollment from California has increased steadily over the past decade, and the school now counts more than 12,000 students from the Golden State.
The expansion could put ASU in more direct competition for students with schools like University of California Los Angeles and the University of Southern California.
The move is the latest expansion of the school outside Arizona. Earlier this year, ASU opened a $35 million building in Washington, D.C., that is a 10minute walk from the White House.
The school’s non-profit real-estate arm, University Realty LLC., is working with commercial developer Georgetown and the Hearst media company on the Los Angeles project.
ASU would not reveal how much the school will pay to rent the location. University Realty owns the space in the building, ASU said. Details on what the university will pay in rent won’t be available until plans are finalized for how the space will be used, ASU said.
The school also said the extent of “participation in the renovation costs” hasn’t been determined yet.
The school said it plans to occupy a “large majority” of the Herald Examiner building, which comes in at more than 100,000 square feet.
ASU plans to bring in programs and initiatives to “draw on the interests and intellectual resources of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism, the Herberger Institute of Design and the Arts, and other units of the university.”
The historic 1914 building, commissioned by publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst, was designed by Julia Morgan, the architect who also designed the California landmark Hearst Castle.
The building, in a Mission Revival/ Spanish Colonial style, features high ceilings, ornate details like marble and gold and hand-painted tiles. The renovated structure will draw on the building’s roots while modernizing interiors, ASU said.
The developers plan to completely renovate the building and add restaurants and retail on the ground floor. Classrooms and offices will occupy higher floors.
Already, restaurant Republique is expected to open on the ground floor later this year, ASU said.
ASU President Michael Crow said in a press release that the school is excited to be part of a downtown Los Angeles resurgence.
“Not only does the building illuminate the city’s rich history dating back more than a century, we look forward to our presence there to play an important role in adding to the downtown’s intellectual, cultural and economic vibrancy,” Crow said.