Design for New Cronkite Building Unveiled

Overview:

• Six stories, 110-feet tall, 223,000 square feet
• $71 million cost, part of $223 million bond issue approved by Phoenix voters
• Ground floor retail facing Central Avenue, First Street and Taylor Street Mall
• Shaded arcades under building’s perimeter to foster outdoor seating “café life”
• Main entrance on Taylor Street Mall under a three-story high “front porch,” “an urban gesture toward Central Avenue, the civic space and Taylor Street Mall”
• Exterior materials include glass, metal and masonry. “The composition is kinetic and dynamic – symbolic of journalism and the media’s role in our open society”
• Satellite dishes on roof placed to be clearly visible to express the building’s communication function

Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication:

• All of floors 2 and 3 and parts of floors 4 and 6; 102,592 square feet
• Large two-story public forum with balconies for formal events and informal gatherings, the central element of the interior’s design
• Spacious glass-enclosed student lounge/reading room off of forum
• Five working newsrooms to house full immersion professional experiences for all forms of journalism and communications – TV, print, radio multimedia and PR
• Two TV studios with adjoining state-of-the-art digital control rooms for daily newscasts and satellite feeds
• Homes for the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism, the New Media Innovation Lab and a new center for new media entrepreneurship
• Eight other digital computer labs for classes
• A 150-seat theater-style auditorium, seven conference rooms and four other fully mediated classrooms

Eight/KAET – Arizona PBS

• All of floor 5 and parts of floors 4 and 6; 76,323 square feet
• Digital video plant with 1.5 GB HDTV transmission reaching 1.7 million viewers
• Two TV studios, including one that spans nearly 6,000 square feet, located on the 26-foot high top floor
• State-of-the-art production and audio control rooms, editing suites and transmission center
• Home to Horizon, ASSET and KBAQ production studio
• Terrace and conference rooms overlooking Taylor Street Mall

General University:

• Five classrooms (460 seats) on first floor; seven classrooms (210 seats) on fourth floor; 23,015 square feet

Source: Design-Build Team of Steven Ehrlich Architects of Culver City, Calif., HDR Architecture Inc. of Phoenix and SUNDT Construction Inc. of Tempe