Cronkite Joins Mayor, ASU President for Groundbreaking Ceremony

Building exterior

Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon, ASU President Michael Crow and former CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite will host a groundbreaking ceremony for the new building that will house the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication and KAET/Eight, the ASU-operated public television station.

The ceremonies will be held Feb. 21, 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., at University Center, 411 N. Central Ave., adjacent to the site of the new building.

The six-story, 223,000-square foot building, which will be built on ASU’s new Downtown Campus along Central Avenue, will open for the fall 2008 academic semester. The $71 million building is being funded by a bond approved 2-1 last year by Phoenix voters.

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The Cronkite School will occupy about half of the new complex, including the entire second and third floors and sections of the fourth and sixth floors. KAET will be housed on the fifth floor and the other sections of floors four and six. The first floor will be retail and general university classrooms.

Dean Christopher Callahan said the new Cronkite School will be closer to major market media organizations – in many cases, within walking distance – than any other journalism school in the country.

“The distance to major news employers, coupled with a building that will house state-of-the-art digital media labs, studios and newsrooms, will give Cronkite students an enormous advantage and help us make a very large leap toward our goal of becoming the very best professional journalism school in the nation,” Callahan said.

For more information contact Kelli Kennedy at kkenned5@asu.edu.