Last Sunday's News Today: Augmented Reality > ASU Money-Pit Makes Mesa A Hi-Tech Gateway?

That's what East Valley Tribune staff writer Jim Walsh wrote last week in his front-page story spoon-fed forecast for a decade from now.
O Yes,  Jim, "It’s hard to imagine what technological advances might come from ASU @ Mesa City Center because some of these inventions either don’t exist or are not widely known today. . ."  That's correct.

All that over-blow hype is an invention that Jim Walsh gets paid to write to influence the media and create a concocted narrative. Is there something in the water here in Mesa?
What's known is that a privately-funded $500,000 public relations campaign, headquartered in the mayors's personal injury/accident law offices, blew up in 2016 turning into a major screw-up when Mesa taxpayers rejected his $240M trick using public debt money to finance the private wealth-creation schemes of his friends gambling on rampant real estate speculation here in downtown commercial properties. It was all leveraged on "ASU @ Mesa City Center."

City officials wanted four new buildings back then were forced to re-think and re-package the scheme to sell it again. They had no idea what programs might work to convince taxpayers to pay for the construction of one new building for a branch of ASU's Tempe main campus just five light rail stops away when Benedictine University had established a campus five years ago - all in existing buildings (including a residence hall) converted cost-efficiently for adaptive re-use.
Taxpayers approved spending $63.5M for one new building.

That was in 2018. The conceptual rendering was an imaginary 5-story building and a lot of 'pretty pictures' and promises to solicit community input in a series of workshops in April 2019.
All the plans fast became a
"360-Degree Dilemma"
( Use the SEARCHBOX on this blog for more details all about that )
_________________________________________________________________________
Back to Jim Walsh's article last Sunday

ASU building making Mesa a hi-tech gateway        

By Jim Walsh, Tribune Staff Writer

East Valley Tribune | 2020-01-12T01:00:00-07:00

"A decade from now, the innovations dreamed up by Arizona State University students in Mesa will probably make Alexa and PlayStation look as arcane as Pong and the video cassette recorder . . .

The ASU building is a huge piece aimed at housing even bigger ideas.

At 65 feet tall with 110,000 square feet, it will be home to three complete movie studios, an “enhanced immersion” art studio, a café and a large walk-through lobby.

Pinholster describes the program inside the building as a one-of-a-kind combination of a film school and a breeding ground for emerging technologies.

“It’s definitely exciting and nerve-racking at the same time.

It’s two years before this building opens and I already feel like I’m behind,’’ Pinholster said.

"Once the ASU building opens in 2022, it will probably start as an undergraduate film school, but will quickly add a graduate program built on extending the use of technology into various industries.

“It’s a really exciting program with a lot more horsepower than anything out there,’’ he said. “None of these programs have been combined with a high-end film production program.’’

By 2025, ASU anticipates having 1,000 students in Mesa, with the film school alone serving 500 to 700 students, Pinholster said.

“I think the dream is we will eventually see a campus in downtown Mesa,’’ he said.

For now, the Mesa building will operate as a satellite with students using the Metro Light Rail to commute between the Tempe campus and Mesa.

He said the graduate students in Mesa will focus heavily on XR, or extended reality technology.
This catch-all phrase includes virtual reality, mixed reality and augmented reality.
_____________