Students scurry along a quiet dirt lot near College Avenue and Seventh Street on the Tempe campus each day, but in the near future, cranes, hard hats and noise will claim the student footpath.
Earlier this semester, the Arizona Board of Regents approved a $17.5 million budget for the construction of a new campus bookstore for the space near the Fulton Center parking garage.
The planned two-level bookstore is part of a project named Block 12, but project plans are still in the preliminary stages.
“We are still thinking about what we want to do,” said Morgan Olsen, ASU’s executive vice president and treasurer.
Sam Wheeler, executive director of Auxiliary Business Services, said the store is not going to replace the existing bookstore on campus.
“What we would like is another store that specializes in specific things … and there has been some talk that this may be the starting point of all the campus orientations,” Wheeler said. “Right now everything is conceptual.”
Olsen said the new bookstore might have a “potential range for clientele.”
The new building will have much more than the current campus store’s commodities. According to ASU’s capital improvement plans presented at a September ABOR meeting, it will include a computer store, convenience shop and food location.
Steve Nielsen, assistant vice president of ASU Real Estate Development, said the University will hire an architect in the next few months.
When construction will begin is still uncertain, but Wheeler is hopeful the bookstore will be ready by fall 2013.
Reach the reporter at cmalecka@asu.edu
Click here to subscribe to the daily State Press newsletter.
