When you're alone and life is making you lonely, you can always go … downtown?

Really?

To us, Downtown Phoenix is still more or less a quiet collection of buildings within a couple of blocks, and that’s even with the spankin’ new ASU campus.

The expected infusion of college students to the equation, though it has somewhat helped to revitalize the city’s urban core, has so far done little by ways of transforming the area into a lively, exciting place to be.

Though the ASU downtown campus administration’s mission statement is, according to their Web site, to “provide an academically rigorous university experience in a vibrant urban campus environment that is integral to the success of the Phoenix community,” this seems quite a while off. The “vibrant” part does, at least.

And the enthusiasm and tenanting of University residence halls is the first indication.

Taylor Place, the one and only downtown residence hall, currently has 445 residents. The new complex is designed to accommodate 744, with the capability to house another 540 when the second tower opens next fall.

Meanwhile, the demand for Vista del Sol, Tempe’s new resort-like on-campus residence hall, has soared. The 1,866-capacity complex is already dealing with expected competition over next fall’s spots.
As far as we’re concerned, Tempe is, and always will be, the premier college town in the Valley. When we’re alone and life is making us lonely, the place to be is in Tempe. It was built for ASU students.

Downtown Phoenix, meanwhile, is far from being a college town and as much as officials would like to push the issue, the process of making it anything more than a commuter campus will take time.
So as Taylor Place stands half empty, we are trying to push ourselves to see it as half full. It’s still early. Though the near future looks rough, the long term could be promising.

Unfortunately, next year’s poor incoming freshmen will be pushed toward Downtown campus.

On the bright side, we can at least safely assume they will utilize the free light rail — to escape Phoenix headed for Tempe to experience the traditional not-stuck-on-a-campus-with-a-few-buildings college life they had always hoped for. (Sadly, the last train of the night currently plans to stop operating at midnight though.)

But for those who will follow them a couple years down the road, as downtown — the campus and the area at large — continues to develop, we hold out hope that ASU’s vision (which is so hard for us to see right now) to turn the downtown area into a perfect community for living, learning and playing works for the best.

If administration’s hopes don’t pan out, we suggest incoming students reserve a spot at Tempe’s Vista del Sol now unless they like campuses with a few buildings in a few blocks and not much else.

But if it does pan out, well, that would be just peachy. Eventually, if all goes to plan, things will be great when they’re downtown. We hope.