Arizona State University’s splashy move into a downtown complex originally built for the long-defunct Los Angeles Herald Examiner will drastically expand the school’s programs here and bring a new vibe to the area around the 105-year-old Moorish-style building.
Arizona State’s presence in the L.A. market has so far consisted of a Santa Monica-based California Center and an affiliation with Zocalo Public Square, a nonprofit organization.
Now the school – which counts a Sun Devil as its mascot and has become the largest university in the nation by number of students – will flex its muscle in L.A. by occupying 80,000 square feet of the landmark 100,000-square-foot Herald Examiner building at 11TH Street and Broadway. The plan is to establish programs of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communications and Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at the complex in the south end of downtown. The area is the latest outpost in the redevelopment of the city’s center that’s now in its second decade.
Both of the programs already extend from Arizona State’s main campus in Tempe to the Santa Monica center.
The move is part of Arizona State President Michael Crow’s mandate, as laid out on the school’s website, to make the school a “leading public metropolitan research university,” with Los Angeles playing a central role in that mission.
An Aug. 17 statement from Crow regarding the downtown move said that his school’s growing engagement in Los Angeles “will allow us to provide students and faculty creative new learning experiences, work with new strategic partners, and participate in the critical issues facing the nation’s second largest city.”
Arizona State’s Herberger design school announced in May an academic program in conjunction with Los Angeles County, and recent publicity materials from the university has compared its research expenditures favorably to universities in Southern California.
Arizona State has yet to lay out any timeline on the building’s renovation, or specifics of how the journalism and design programs might use the space.
“There are a plethora of compelling ideas that will be good for the university and the community,” said Arizona State spokesman Steven Beschloss.
Beschloss also mentioned that the university’s Thunderbird School of Global Management, Sandra Day O’Connor School of Law, School of Sustainability, and Fulton School of Engineering could have a presence.
Zocalo, meanwhile, combines a syndicated lineup of journalism distributed digitally with a steady schedule of events that convene representatives from cross-sections of society as part of a stated mission of “connecting people to ideas and to each other.”
Arizona State’s announcement on the Herald Examiner caught Los Angeles area universities’ attention, particularly those that pour significant resources into their journalism programs.
The Herald Examiner building is a little more than two miles from the USC Annenberg School for Journalism and Communication, generally regarded as the most prestigious journalism program on the West Coast.
Beschloss did not say whether the Cronkite School viewed Annenberg as a competitor, or a possible collaborator, for Zocalo or a sports journalism program Arizona State already at its Santa Monica center.
“We are open to exploring any educational partnership,” Beschloss said.
Beschloss did imply a contrast between Arizona State, which has an 83 percent undergraduate acceptance rate as of 2016, and USC, a private school which admitted 18 percent of undergraduates.
“We take seriously our charter to measure ourselves based not on how many students we exclude, but how many we include and how they succeed,” he said.
Gordon Stables, journalism director at the USC Annenberg School, took Arizona State’s plan as a sign of “the importance of investing in journalism education and L.A. real estate.”
“This isn’t a zero-sum situation,” Stables said.
A representative of the Mike Curb College of Arts, Media and Communication at California State University-Northridge expressed some some concern. The Curb School has largest journalism program in the area by enrollment, with about 250 students earning bachelors’ degree a year, about twice Annenberg’s rate.
Department Chair Linda Bowen said that Cal State Northridge is facing budget freezes on the overall CSU system, while Arizona State has started recruiting at local community colleges, including Santa Monica College.
Arizona State’s relatively healthy budget picture gives the school more leeway on recruiting while “we have to be creative in how we manage students,” Bowen.
California State University-Long Beach, which graduated 124 undergraduate journalism students in 2015, is the area’s second largest journalism school by enrollment. Jennifer Fleming, chair of journalism program at the school, said she planned to withhold assessment of Arizona State’s efforts in L.A. until learning more about how much of the Cronkite School will take up the building, and what programs it plans to offer.
Arizona State’s announcement could also impact the local art and design school market. The biggest such area program, the UCLA School of Art and Architecture, said that it welcomed Arizona State into Los Angeles.
Any moves by Arizona State will take a while downtown, since the Herald Examiner building isn’t planned to re-open until 2020. The historic landmark, known for its ornate lobby, was commissioned by famed publisher William Randolph Hearst in 1913. It has sat largely dormant – save the occasional film shoot – since Herald Examiner shut down in 1988.
Matters changed in 2015 when Georgetown Company, a New York City developer, partly took over ownership of the building and began exploring tenants.
The building is now co-owned by Hearst, Georgetown, an investment entity affiliated with Arizona State, and Santa Monica-based Main Street Advisors.
In addition to Arizona State, part of the first floor will be occupied by Republique Café, a self-described French-inspired bistro and bakery, who announced its move into the building in December.
Georgetown is looking for one to two more tenants to complete its renting of the property, according to a company spokesman.
The Herald Examiner property sits in a space undergoing multiple new commercial developments, and lies near the gentrifying, if not gentrified, downtown and arts district.
Beschloss said that the school is committed to connecting with the surrounding community.
“Questions surrounding urban infrastructure, rapid urbanization, economic and social development, sustainability, and the future of arts and design – these are just some of the questions that are at the forefront of the work of many of ASU’s schools and initiatives,” Beschloss said.
