ASU’s University Gateway Building Blends Retail, Education and Sustainability
By Fay Harvey
TEMPE, Ariz. — 17Թ recently concluded on Arizona State University’s (ASU) University Gateway Building (UGB), a $78 million, five-story mixed-use facility with an architecturally complex facade. The structure unifies retail, education, and art spaces under one sustainably designed roof.
“The University Gateway Building marks a significant milestone for Arizona State University, linking the west side of the Tempe campus with the vibrant energy of Mill Avenue,” said Tim Smith, ASU Facilities Development and Management vice president in a statement. “With its distinctive angular façade, we have a visual showpiece that inspires ideas and innovation.”
The 128,000-square-foot structure was the remaining element to a two-part project completed in tandem by the design-build team of St. Louis, Mo.-based McCarthy Building Companies, Inc. and Phoenix-based DFDG Architects. The first part of the project, a six-story parking structure, was completed last year.
Inside the UGB
Classrooms within the UGB are home to the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts where students study music, music therapy, photography, e-sports, architecture and animation programs. Designed with acoustics in mind, the building’s third floor features an extensive sound isolation system from Phoenix-based TP Acoustics Inc., to manage both internal and external noise. The firm helped develop the ideal settings for instrument practice rooms, group rehearsal spaces, recording studios and a music therapy clinic for the college’s music program.

An e-sport gaming lounge, large computer labs, 3D printing technology and state-of-the-art dark rooms all have homes within the other three academic floors and are neighbored by faculty offices and flex study areas for nearby academic support.
By grouping similar occupants, the projectteam maximized the use of special elements, i.e. sound-proofed areas for various sound needs or dark spaces designed to be adjacent to photography study areas, according to Jonathan Kimble, project manager at McCarthy Building Companies. Kimble spoke to the value of developing a mixed-use space and strategically separating or conjoining amenities.
“Sometimes that separation can be a hard line between floors or slowly transitioning from office space on one end of the building to a photo lab on the other end by mixing in study spaces, classrooms and lounge areas to help soften the transition”
However, the building isn’t all academically focused. To maximize land use for various stakeholder groups, the building offers leasable restaurant and retail spaces on the ground level. A pedestrian walkway along the building’s facade creates an inviting environment for community members and complementing the building’s innovativehigh-performance thermal, air and vapor envelope.
The exposed facades are designed to minimize direct solar gain with various shading strategies. For instance, the western facade features a unitized skin system with a deeply faceted geometric design, providing coverage from sunlight to help reduce energy consumption.
Designing this angular facade brought a variety of challenges beyond the building’s shape alone, such as the street’s building’s bustling, arterial Mill Avenue location and the overall process of creating a showcase design that serves as the gateway to ASU’s campus.
“To overcome these challenges, we worked closely with our design team as well as our trade partner, KT-Fabrication, to create a superior skin system that would not only be a statement piece for ASU but could also be prefabricated and shipped to the site for installation to help mitigate disruption to traffic,” said Kimble. “We built a mockup of the skin panels at KT-Fabrication’s yard where we were able to perform testing and review with ASU to make any necessary adjustments prior to installing the panels on site.”
Parking Solutions
The UGB wraps around the $42 million Mill Avenue parking structure, completed in 2023. The structure, the first phase of the Mill Avenue project by design-build team McCarthy Building Companies Inc. and DFDG Architects, added 1,205 parking spaces to the area.

ASU’s dedication to sustainability remains evident in the 429,000-square-foot parking structure, which features EV charging stations on the first and third floors. The six-story building has a rooftop photovoltaic array for electrical power generation, while below the structure underground thermal energy storage supports campus cooling. Secure bike parking is offered, with changing rooms and showers also included to support greener commutes.
Commissioning of the two-part project entailed sourcing chilled-water air handlers and pumps, a dedicated outdoor air system, electric water heaters, circulation pumps, hydronic heat exchangers and exhaust fans. Advanced lighting, including control systems for dimming and motion sensing, were also critical to the environmentally sustainable elements of the project. The combined parking structure and University Gateway Building are projected to meet LEED Silver and Parksmart Gold certifications.
Key construction trade partners also included Sun Valley Masonry in Phoenix, and Tempe, Ariz.-based companies Arizona Elevator Solutions and RH Dupper Landscaping.