Mayor Neil Giuliano officially welcomed ASU to downtown Tempe on Friday as the University extended its boundaries to the Brickyard building on Mill Avenue.
The department of computer science and engineering will occupy five floors of the building. The move should be completed by the spring 2004 semester.
Giuliano said the move would be "great for the University, great for the Valley and great for our overall economic climate.
"Downtown Tempe is a vibrant, diverse urban area that provides excitement and energy for new ideas," he added. "Having students, faculty and staff from research and engineering here is exactly what we want."
Sethuraman Panchanathan, professor and chair of the department of computer science and engineering, said the biggest benefit to the University was the increase in space.
"This will have a fantastic impact on undergraduate education," he said.
The department's move to the downtown site will expand its total space by 253 percent.
More than 1,700 students will be working in classrooms and laboratories in the Brickyard, assisted by 45 faculty members.
"We don't think the local entrepreneurs will know what hit them when the students descend on the downtown," said Peter Crouch, dean of the Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering.
Some students said they were excited about the move, including Ryan Guzy, a computer science senior who said the move would mean more resources.
"It will be good to have [Mill Avenue] as a student gathering area," he said. "It'll be nice to go somewhere new and see somewhere different."
Councilman Mark Mitchell said the move would further blend ASU and Tempe, and the two could benefit from each other's resources. "When people think of Tempe they think of ASU, and vice versa," he said. "They complement each other very well."
Reach the reporter at katherine.j.krzys@asu.edu.
