San Francisco State University is closing its current Downtown Campus this summer and moving in with UC Law.

The Lam Family College of Business will be moving their current operations in the Downtown Campus to the UC Law Academic Village. UC Law San Francisco is a public law school within the University of California system. The space at 198 McAllister St. currently houses UC San Francisco, UC Davis, the University of San Francisco and the University of the Pacific Dugoni School of Dentistry. 

The Downtown Campus was formerly located in San Francisco Centre, renting from the mall’s former tenant and namesake Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield. After their 15-year lease with Westfield expired in 2021, the campus moved to its current location at 160 Spear St. 

Built in 2023, UC Law’s campus on McAllister wasn’t an option when the university moved in 2021. By the end of June, SFSU will have fully moved in.

Hamid Ghaemmaghami, SFSU’s executive director of real estate development, said the move to the UC Law space is a cost-saving measure.

“We signed a five-year lease and we basically really saved a lot of money because they cut our rent expense quite a bit,” Ghaemmaghami said.

Graduate business programs used to share the current Downtown Campus with the College of Professional and Global Education, the core occupant of the building. However, since CPaGe moved back to the main campus, the Lam Family College of Business would have needed to sustain the rent on its own. 

Select Lam Family College of Business programs will be taught at 198 McAllister street, occupying 3,200 square feet of space in UC Law’s building, including two dedicated classrooms and an office space for SFSU. 

Lutfus Sayeed, faculty director of the Graduate School of Business, works at the Downtown Campus and has been teaching with the LFCoB for 30 years. Sayeed said that while the current campus has five dedicated classrooms for business alone, downsizing to just two classrooms in the new building is intended to “optimize the use” of space.

“If we need additional space, we could rent from UC Law… based on a needs basis, so that’s another advantage,” Sayeed said. “That’s the flexibility we wanted, rather than having a large fixed clause where some of our classes are not holding classes at times.” 

CFO of Administration and Finance Jeff Wilson spoke to the notion that the university wasn’t fully utilizing the Downtown Campus to justify the costs.

“We realized we had too much space,” Wilson said. “Now, we’ll be moving to a space that offers us more flexibility, and definitely some cost savings.”

Students of the Lam Family College of Business will have access to UC Law’s library and shared study spaces.

Wilson pointed to the campus’ location near Civic Center Station and Market Street offering more access to transit than the current Downtown Campus.

“The Lam Family College of Business will have the largest share of operations,” Wilson said. “That’s just trying to make it easier for those folks who are doing their masters — or whatever other degrees — in the evening, or closer to where they work, easier for transit.”

Sandra Henao, executive director of business development and marketing, echoed Wilson’s sentiments.

“Many of our graduate students choose our graduate business programs because of the convenience of being able to attend classes downtown where many of them also work so they don’t have to put their careers on hold to pursue their master’s degree,” said Henao.

Paul Glanting, director of LFCoB career services and professional development, said that the proximity to downtown’s bustling businesses provides networking opportunities with neighboring companies.

“We are a school, but we also play an assertive role in our region’s economy,” Glanting said. “In addition to classes, our college hosts a multitude of conferences, social mixers, career events, etc, and physically being in the orbit of much of San Francisco’s commerce allows us to link classrooms to the broader business world.” 

Sayeed said that the new site benefits from having various schools in one building and its location just a couple blocks from both City Hall and Market Street.

“We have to make a decision based on the needs of our programs,” Sayeed said. “For a business school, it’s a good idea to be where the business is taking place. We’re the largest business school in San Francisco, so we should not retreat from the competition.”