Downtown Phoenix Campus

New Home of the Cronkite School

Aug. 25, 2008, was a historic day for the Cronkite School: It was the first day of classes in the journalism school’s new building in downtown Phoenix.

The state-of-the-art journalism education complex in the heart of downtown Phoenix provides aspiring journalists and communication professionals unparalleled opportunities.

World-Class Journalism Building
Students study and practice journalism in one of the nation’s most sophisticated journalism education facilities. The Cronkite School has more than 100,000 square feet in a new multi-use complex on the corner of Central Avenue and Taylor Street. The design includes a large forum for public events, five digital newsrooms, two new media laboratories, seven other computer labs, two TV studios and control rooms, dozens of digital editing bays, a 150-seat auditorium, four other fully mediated classrooms, seven conference rooms and a Student Services Center with a reading room and interviewing rooms for internship and job prospects. The LEED Silver-certified building recently won an international architecture award.

Proximity to Major-Market Media Organizations
The school is closer to major metropolitan news operations – newspaper, TV, radio and online – than any journalism school in the country. And that is critically important in a discipline in which high-quality professional internships during college are essential for future success. The university-operated public television station, KAET/Channel 8, will be in the same complex. Just blocks away are The Arizona Republic, the nation’s 10th largest daily newspaper, azcentral.com, KPNX-TV/Channel 12, the region’s NBC affiliate, Fox10/KSAZ-TV, Fox Sports Net, CBS Radio, the Phoenix Business Journal and La Voz, a leading Spanish language newspaper. Other daily news operations are within a few miles.

Taylor Place Residence Hall

Accessibility to Fieldwork
The core of our journalism curriculum is rigorous fieldwork-based assignments in which students report, write, produce and edit real stories. Our new location provides students extraordinary opportunities to cover major events, people and issues. City Hall, federal, state and local courthouses and government agencies, the Phoenix Bioscience Center, cultural venues such as the Herberger, Orpheum and Dodge theaters, and sports arenas such as Chase Field (home of the Arizona Diamondbacks) and US Airways Center (home of the Phoenix Suns) are all within walking distance.

Liberal Arts Coursework
All journalism courses are taught in the new building, but the majority of students’ curriculum is outside of journalism in the liberal arts. Those courses are easily accessible on the Downtown campus through University College. Cronkite students can complete their entire course of study on the downtown campus. But they can also easily enroll in specialty classes – or take a second major – on the Tempe campus.

Residential Living
Taylor Place, a residence hall for students on the Downtown Phoenix Campus, opened in time for the start of school in August of 2008.

Taylor Place’s first phase features a 13-story tower with 744 beds at the site between First and Second streets on Taylor Street. An additional 550 beds in a second tower are scheduled to open by the fall of 2009. Both towers cover 366,500 combined square feet.

The first floor of the complex includes a dining facility, retail stores and an outdoor patio garden. Each floor has a laundry facility, meeting room, vending area, atrium lounge and screened porch areas.

Most Cronkite freshmen live in the hall, which features living and learning communities for the Cronkite School and Barrett, The Honors College.

Light Rail Stop Near School

Light Rail to Tempe and the Rest of the Valley
A new light rail transportation system opened in December of 2008, connecting Mesa, Tempe and Phoenix. The 20-mile line runs from uptown Phoenix through the city’s downtown and east to Tempe and Mesa. A light rail station sits directly across from the Cronkite School and gets students to and from the Tempe campus in about half an hour.

Student Amenities
A student center at the Downtown Phoenix campus opened in January 2013 and serves as the hub of student interaction and connection. It features meeting spaces for DPC’s 100-plus student clubs and organizations as well as a gaming room, recreation lounge, five high-definition TVs, a grand piano and a station of Changemaker Central, which connects students to resources to support their big ideas.

Scheduled to open in August 2013, the Sun Devil Fitness Complex at DPC will add to existing student recreation facilities on campus. Built in collaboration with the Lincoln Family Downtown YMCA, the center will consist of 143,000 square feet devoted to fitness, wellness, sports and aquatic facilities for ASU students and the downtown Phoenix community. It will include more than 150 pieces of state-of-the-art cardio and strength equipment, two pools, an indoor running track, two gymnasiums and numerous group fitness studios offering a broad range of group fitness, yoga, Pilates and mindfulness activities. There also will be a rooftop pool for student use.