Mesa Pinpoints City-Owned Property for ASU’s Downtown Expansion, ‘Next Leap’ for City

Article originally posted on AZ Central on January 25, 2024

Aging city-owned properties in Mesa could end up being part of an expanding Arizona State University campus thanks to an updated agreement between the city and the school.

The City Council has for years dreamed the university could anchor its arts and innovation district and bring a bustling downtown along with it.

In 2018, Mesa and the Arizona Board of Regents approved an agreement to develop the ASU campus downtown to include ASU’s Media and Immersive eXperience Center, which is focused on film production and digital technology. That was completed in 2022.

Mesa contributed $63.5 million, including selling $40 million in bonds, for the construction of the $100 million MIX Center. ASU has a 99-year lease with the city and pays a $100,000 yearly lease payment.

The MIX Center was phase one of the three-part project. The 2018 agreement also called for the construction of two new buildings to bring a minimum of 2,000 students and 200 faculty members on campus.

Jeff McVay, the city’s Downtown Transformation Office manager, said the design of the MIX Center took the space where Building B was proposed to be built. That has led the two institutions to rework the original agreement.

With it, ASU and Mesa will add deadlines for future deals.

Now the city and ASU propose updating its agreement with potential development sites on city-owned property and two “partner locations.”  ASU is also first in line to potentially redevelop a building in front of the Mesa Arts Center.

The City Council is slated to vote on the changes in February.

City properties optioned for ASU use

City officials propose three sites in its downtown as potential development sites, including the site of its current working post office, the parking lot of its downtown public library and a municipal building along Center and 1st streets.

They also proposed two sites for both city and university uses.’

McVay said the city would offer ground leases to the sites and does not plan on selling the property to ASU.

The ground lease for the post office on Center Street is set to expire in May 2025. The building was built in the 1970s. Once that lease ends, the city will become the post office’s landlord.

The idea is to redevelop the building to function both as a post office and as an ASU facility similar to the school’s downtown Phoenix student center, McVay said. The city is committed to keeping it at that location he said, a sentiment echoed by the council.

“We are not evicting the post office from downtown Mesa,” Mayor John Giles said at a council meeting.

ASU needs to have an agreement along with a concept plan and an estimated project budget by June 2025 to retain the site. The design and construction of the post office building will have to be completed within five years of an approved agreement.

The parking lot of the downtown city library could be another potential development site but that area poses an issue. A new building would block the front door to the library.

The university will have 10 years to reach an agreement with the city that can be extended up to 25 years if the ASU develops over sites first.

The building where Mesa residents go to pay their utility bills is also on the list of locations up for grabs. However, the city will need to vacate it first, and the city has no current plans to do that, according to McVay. If the city does, ASU will have two years to approve an agreement to renovate the building.

The ‘next leap’ for Mesa development

The vacant city buildings at 51-55 E Main St, in front of the arts center, could soon be demolished and replaced by a 10- to 14-story building.

That building is currently used for storage and was temporarily used as the MIX Center contractor’s office when it was being built. A concept study by the city envisions it as a mixed-use retail, office and housing building.

“The city would be very open to ASU stepping in to be the developer of the site,” McVay said.

Ideally, the university would use some of the building and lease out other portions to business partners that support the students graduating from ASU’s MIX Center, he said.

This project will be the “next leap forward” in downtown development, McVay said. “We need to be deliberate in our actions and thoughtful in how we do it,” he said.