The city of Phoenix is expected to close a $6.25 million deal Friday to buy property near the Downtown campus that will be used partly to develop new ASU facilities, a city official said.

The property includes a vacant motel that served as an ASU dormitory in 2006, when the Downtown campus first opened.

The city plans to buy the property from its owner, City Center, LLC, before a foreclosure auction on March 2, where other buyers could bid on the property, said Jason Harris, deputy director of the city’s Community and Economic Development Department. City Center owes its lender $5.2 million, Harris said.

The Phoenix City Council approved the deal on Feb. 3.

The purchase will be made using $5 million from a 2006 education bond. The remaining $1.25 million will come from the Downtown Phoenix Hotel Corporation, a nonprofit group formed by the city.

The city plans to remove the motel, an old Ramada Inn, and lease the block to the Sheraton Hotel across the street for a while, University Planner Richard Stanley said.

The city and the University don’t currently have the funds available to build new ASU facilities, he said.

“We have not determined a specific long-term project for the property, and we will work with Phoenix on planning that use,” Stanley said in an e-mail.

Ideas about possible projects include more classroom space and a facility for ASU’s law school, Stanley said.

The idea of developing a new law school facility on the Downtown campus leads back to a 2007 speech by Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon, he said.

In his 2007 State of Downtown address, Gordon called for a partnership among the city, its law firms and ASU to undertake a private and public capital campaign.

“[I] invite Dr. Crow to relocate ASU’s College of Law, my alma mater, to downtown Phoenix, where our courts and so many of our law firms are located,” Gordon said.

Sandra Day O’Connor Law School student Chelsey Golightly, who will graduate in May, said future law students would benefit if the school were to relocate from Tempe to the Downtown campus.

“I think it would be a huge selling point for students coming to the law school,” she said.

Golightly, who is a law clerk at Shaw and Lines, LLC and has an externship with Judge Bethany Hicks at the Maricopa County Superior Court, said she spends most of her time in Phoenix.

Traffic would no longer be an issue for students traveling from Tempe to downtown, she said.

The law school’s Web site advertises the school as being “part of the Phoenix metropolitan area” and even has a picture of Phoenix on the site, though no facilities are at the Downtown campus.

Downtown student government President Tania Mendes said it is great the city of Phoenix and the University are partnering again to improve the Downtown campus.

“It’s beneficial for the Downtown campus and the downtown community,” Mendes said.

In addition to the University, private businesses will most likely utilize the property being purchased, Harris said.

“I can’t envision it being all ASU use,” he said.

Reach the reporter at kjdaly@asu.edu