By Jonmaesha Beltran | Downtown Devil
Over the past 10 years, Arizona State University’s Downtown Phoenix campus has evolved and helped bring life into downtown Phoenix.
The campus first opened for classes in 2006 with approximately 3,000 students taking courses, a number that would double by 2009. Today the campus has about 12,000 students enrolled and more than 2,000 faculty and staff, according to a report from Downtown Phoenix Inc.
“Before 2008 there was a mass exodus at 5 p.m. in downtown Phoenix, Monday through Friday,” said Jill Johnson, manager of Phoenix Rising Tours and one-time program coordinator for ASU. “If you went downtown and there wasn’t a Suns game or Diamondbacks game it was pretty dead. You would have traffic coming into the city to work, and then people would just be leaving at 5 p.m.”
