On my most recent weekend getaway to San Francisco, I tried to see how the pedestrian atmosphere might have changed since I had last been there a year earlier. In light of the economic troubles nationwide, I was curious to see if a noticeable number of stores had closed or if fewer people were on the sidewalks: in short, to see if the street life I had come to admire in the city had at all dimmed. While not possessing any firm statistical data, my personal observations led me to conclude that San Francisco’s street life was more or less as vibrant as in years past. However, something else I noticed on this visit was the pervasive presence of the Academy of Art University, a reoccurring feature in San Francisco’s downtown that I had largely undervalued as an anchor of the city’s activity.
The Academy of Art University in San Francisco is a private college, offering arts-related bachelor’s and master’s degrees on subjects ranging from architecture to cinema. The university’s enrollment of 13,000 undergraduate and graduate students makes it one of the largest private, arts-based universities in the nation. What is unique about the university is that it possesses no single campus, no central lawn or student quad. Instead, the campus is made up of over thirty buildings and storefronts spread over two dozen blocks in the heart of the city. The recognizable university logo of two overlapping stylized A’s over a red circle graces buildings in the Financial District, around Union Square, and Lafayette Park, as well as the emerging South of Market neighborhood.
Academy students haul portfolios and art supply cases from block to block, occupy cafés, and collect in public spaces side by side with shoppers, tourists, and residents, all providing vibrant youthful energy to San Francisco’s downtown. Of course, the concept of an urban campus is quite common: some of the most vibrant cities in North America feature universities integrated into their downtowns. The residents, jobs, and activities associated with these campuses means they generate activity for their urban environments. Through real-world practicums, many of these universities leverage the intellectual strength of their diverse student bodies and faculty to address issues that effect their neighboring communities. Ruth and Rick Meghiddo have thoughtfully described how such a productive relationship between university and city might work here in Long Beach (in one of the most recent Long Beach Business Journal’s “Imagine” series).
The concept of weaving a university into our urban fabric is not altogether new: there have been at least a half-dozen downtown development proposals involving Cal State Long Beach in some fashion. In addition, Hancock University is a new art and design college just north of downtown, occupying a beautifully-converted commercial building on Long Beach Boulevard. Their campus also includes a couple nearby apartment buildings that serve as student housing. Given that the San Francisco Academy of Art began 80 years ago in a rented loft near Chinatown, Hancock University’s ambitions for future growth are not completely far-fetched.
Within downtown Long Beach, over 200,000 square feet of vacant commercial space is currently available for the next urban college. This does not even include vacant storefronts or unleased office space: the figure includes only partially or completely empty buildings; from the vast space in the Lafayette building under street level to the half acre of unoccupied space in the historic building now housing the Rite Aid (on Pine Avenue at Sixth Street). The current economic lull might represent an opportunity to repurpose these portions of downtown Long Beach for higher learning. In an economic climate when funding is difficult to obtain, colleges looking to build new classrooms, auditoriums, and offices could find an entire campus’s worth of available space. Many of the amenities that serve colleges already exist downtown. Downtown Long Beach is an active, walkable environment and is well connected via the free transit provided by the Passport shuttle. The Borders bookstore at the Pike could serve as a campus bookstore for an urban college or university; indeed, this bookstore chain already fills this role for many universities nationally. The numerous restaurants and coffee shops already downtown could serve the needs of students for fuel and rest between classes.
In short, downtown Long Beach could become the home of a new college or university seeking a more central location in the Southern California. Long Beach State could move departments or schools downtown, alleviating growth pressure at its main campus on the eastern side of the city. Another possibility is that the Long Beach City College system could create a third campus to complement the two already in existence, perhaps focused on emerging sectors. For instance, arts- and design-based curricula are popular for urban environments because they tend to draw on the same creative energy; there are over 100 certifications and licensing programs that can be offered in fields of health science. Many of these sectors are growing fields that could allow a focused campus to quickly attract a large student body. This is particularly the case in the current environment, where much of the workforce is trying to retool themselves for new careers.
While there is no single magic bullet for revitalizing a downtown, establishing urban college campuses has been shown to be a successful long-term strategy. Over time, stores open and close; residents move; companies shift with the economy—but the enduring foundation of many great cities remains their urban institutions of higher education. For Long Beach, there could be many benefits to establishing a university downtown, not just in terms of education but touching upon everything from thriving public space to economic development. Despite the significant budgetary constraints that presently exist regarding any expansion of secondary education, the current growth of persons seeking to enter college, alongside reduced property values, make this an opportune time to explore the idea of an urban campus for Long Beach.
