Location, better facilities key to Thomas Jefferson move
By DOUG SHERWIN, The Daily Transcript
Monday, October 29, 2007
Thomas Jefferson School of Law officials hope a move from Old Town to downtown will raise the school's national profile while providing an increased connectivity to the San Diego legal establishment.
The proposed eight-story, 177,000-square-foot facility located near Petco Park also will represent a marked physical improvement over Thomas Jefferson's current classroom space.
"It's a long sought dream that's finally beginning to happen," said Rudy Hasl, dean of Thomas Jefferson. "I think it will be good for the entire legal community in San Diego to have a school in the downtown area. We'll have a library available for attorneys, and we'll have a pool of student labor available to law firms and courts.
"I think everyone becomes a winner in this situation."
School officials recently announced the purchase of property at 1123 Island Avenue in San Diego's East Village.
The planned facility will more than double the 75,000 square feet of space the school currently occupies between three buildings in Old Town.
Groundbreaking likely will take place in April, with classes starting in the fall of 2010. A contractor has not been selected yet.
Thomas Jefferson has been in Old Town since 1983 and is housed in structures originally designed as office buildings.
"The buildings were never intended for educational purposes," Hasl said. "We've made the best of them, but there's been limitations on delivering (the kind of) education we want to deliver to students."
Hasl said plans for purchasing the property have been in the works for more than a year.
The school currently has an enrollment of about 800 students. That's expected to rise to nearly 1,000 with the opening of the new facility.
"I'm tremendously excited about it," said Thomas Jefferson professor Steve Berenson, who teaches family law and professional responsibility. "Not so much because of the proximity to downtown ... that's a bonus. It's the opportunity to have a state-of-the-art facility. One designed from the get-go to be an educational institution."
The architectural plans feature several outdoor terraces and walls of windows. The interior design, which is still in progress, includes an increased number of classrooms, offices and collaborative work areas as well as an expansive two-floor law library, and ample open space and study areas.
Half of the ground floor of the building would be dedicated to law school offices while the other half would be commercial space open to the public in the form of a cafe, bookstore and a live client legal clinic to be operated by Thomas Jefferson.
"Certainly it's going to raise our visibility nationally in terms of law schools around the country," said Berenson, who runs the school's Veterans Legal Clinic. "We've been doing some great things here for a long time but haven't had an eye-catching way of getting it out there.
"I think by being downtown we'll integrate a little better with the bar, the courts and the legal infrastructure in San Diego," he added.
Thomas Jefferson will continue to use its current facility on San Diego Avenue until the spring of 2010. The school eventually will sell the property, which will help to finance the new location.
The new property will have three levels of underground parking. But Hasl said the nearby trolley line will alleviate the need for parking spaces somewhat.
"Thomas Jefferson School of Law is a valuable community resource," said Samuel Kahn, chairman of the school's board of trustees. "We are very proud of what we do as a law school and what we offer to the community. We also are an S & P investment grade corporation that will bring 1,100 people to the downtown area. We will be an important part of the fabric of the downtown community."
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