Arizona State University is expanding its footprint in Los Angeles with a big move in Downtown.
The public school, which is part of the Pac-12 conference that includes USC and UCLA, bought a stake in the Los Angeles Herald Examiner building and will occupy most of the 100,000-square-foot building at 146 W. 11th Street, according to the Los Angeles Business Journal.
The exact terms of the deal were not disclosed. The deal was made through Arizona State’s real estate entity, University Realty and makes Arizona State a co-owner with New York’s Georgetown Co. and Hearst. Georgetown bought the building in 2015 and announced plans to restore it into offices and ground floor retail.
In late 2017, they announced that restaurateurs Walter and Margarita Manzke, who own Republique in La Brea, signed a deal to open a new restaurant in the space.
Legendary newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst tapped architect Julia Morgan to design the building as the home of the Herald Examiner newspaper, replete with an ornate lobby and dramatic arched windows facing Broadway. It opened in 1914 and has sat empty since the newspaper shut down in 1988.
An Arizona State spokesperson did not explicitly say what programs would occupy the building. The spokesperson told the Business Journal that the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication and the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts could hold classes there.
The school also operates a campus in Santa Monica. [LABJ] – Dennis Lynch