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April 20 - 26, 2022 EDITOR: Katelynn Robinson • news@thedailyaztec.com
McDonalds replaced with new Topaz apartments by Christian STAFF WRITER
Houser
A new apartment building named Topaz is under construction between Epic Wings and the Alpha Chi Omega house on Montezuma road. Topaz will be opening to students in fall of 2023 and will consist of 169 student housing beds in 53 units. The budget for the Topaz is $48 million, and it will also feature ground-level retail similar to South Campus Plaza. “The building will house approximately 11,000 square feet of retail space, including relocation of the original McDonald’s restaurant which has secured a 35-year lease,” according to a press release from Berkman Strategic Communications. Mcdonald’s will be returning back to its original spot on an end cap next to the Alpha Chi Omega house, while the other three retail tenants have yet to be announced. Pierce Education Properties will be managing Topaz. Fred Pierce, President and CEO and former President of SDSU Alumni said it will be a unique housing option for students. “Topaz will have cutting-edge architecture, it’s walking distance to campus and it has all the amenities you could want to have,” Pierce said. Topaz is set to be around the same height as the buildings at South Campus Plaza and pre-leasing is set to open in September of this year. Many students at San Diego State were sad to see Banh Mi Babe, McDonald’s, a vintage store and a sushi place being torn down as some had been staples of campus for decades. Marketing senior Nick Cullen said he is excited to see new retail businesses near campus, but McDonald’s taking a leave of absence from SDSU was something he was not in favor of. “Taking away the Mcdonald’s was a low blow, but hearing that an alumnus is leading the charge is promising,” Cullen said. Pierce’s motivations to build student
Photos by David McCullough, McCullough Landscape Architecture
The construction taking place where the McDonalds previously resided is for a new set of college apartments called Topaz. The apartments will have a McDonalds attached to the structure.
housing at SDSU come from his past as a student. “It really is that San Diego State changed my life, the people I met and the experience I had and the gateways it opened up changed my life,” Pierce said. “What I want to do, I want to open this gateway to as many people as I possibly can. I want as many people to go to San Diego State as possible.” The family that has owned the land
McDonald’s resided on for more than 50 years is also a part of the agreement with Pierce Education Properties. The family will share revenues with Pierce Education Properties for Topaz. “I feel like I have a duty to give back and give forward,” Pierce said. “The mission of my company is to have stateof-the-art housing, the nicest housing we can have, but at rates that are affordable to students.”
Lack of action: continued from page 2
Photo by Brittany Cruz-Ferejan
Students described the advertising of the fee to be performative, confusing and inconsistent.
it’s very performative and when you’re in the sustainability movement at San Diego State, it’s frustrating.” Jain also referenced how the university tried to use sustainability as a way to get a student-funded technology fee passed last semester when, in reality, the fee proposal was about 66% for new technology while only 34% focused on sustainability. Forums for the technology and sustainability fee were inconsistent and confusing for the students who attended. Jain said the university used students’ passionate investment in climate crisis solutions to try and get a technology fee passed. “Even with the tech. and sustainability fee, it wasn’t a complete solution (to our climate demands),” Jain said. “We were really mad that they put our climate strike into the presentation for the sustainability and tech fee because we wanted those demands to be funded by the university and not put it on students.”
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continued from page 2 accessibility between administration and students regarding the fees especially when it comes to the I.V. campus. Fitch, who is a student member of the Campus Fee Advisory Committee (CFAC), asked for the presentation materials to be translated into Spanish, but said his requests ultimately were not carried out. “At the Imperial Valley campus, around 93% of the students come from a Spanish background. There are some words we may not understand in English. It seems to me that the bare minimum would be to give our students the accessibility in their language to understand how their dollars will be used,” Fitch said. The CFAC also used and modified a letter of sustainable demands written by SDSU Climate Strike, an sustainability student organization, without the SDSU Climate Strike’s permission within their presentations. “They [CFAC] basically twisted the words of what our entire approach was. Which basically was that the university needs to pay for these sustainability initiatives, not students. But they bounced it back onto the students,” Humphrey said. “I, along with multiple other people, brought that to their attention and asked them to remove it. They still didn’t. They kept it there.” International Security and Conflict Resolution fourth year Gener Abon is a member of the SDSU strategic planning team for activities 15 through 17. Strategic planning activities 15 through 17 all deal with the campus’s sustainable initiatives. Abon said when it comes to both sustainability and fees, university administration does not listen to student voices. “Most staff told us that we don’t have the money to fund staff positions relating to sustainability. When it came to sources of funding, I remember telling the staff exactly that we do not want student fees to fund sustainability initiatives. That has to come from higher administration,” Abon said. The group of professors and students who created the petition hope to spread the message and make real change regarding funding within the university. “All of this money could have been spent better. The students deserve better. They deserve a university that decides to stand up for them, and they’re just not getting that,” Humphrey said.
During its regular meeting April 25, 2022 the Associated Students Board of Directors will vote on some important
BYLAW AMENDMENTS Copies of proposed changes are available to interested individuals upon request from the Conrad Prebys Aztec Student Union's Information Comments regarding the proposed changes are welcomed in advance.
619-594-6555 as.sdsu.edu
