Utah State Innovative Campus expanding
The Utah State University Innovation Campus is gearing up to expand with more buildings and more research opportunities.
Manager of the Innovation Campus, Theresa McKnight, said within the next 18 to 24 months, three new buildings will be constructed at the site.
The Innovation Campus, formally called University Research Park, presently sits on 38 acres of land between 1800 North and 1600 North and 400 East and 600 East in North Logan. Expansions at the site could eventually add 150 acres, McKnight said.
Construction of a 44,000-square-foot Space Dynamics Laboratory Calibration and Research Center has already begun and plans for a business center and biotechnology facility are in the works.
Expansion of the campus as well as the name change are all a part of the research site’s hope to provide the university and community with research opportunities.
“We want to create an environment where we have students in classrooms learning theory as well as having an environment where they can have hands-on experience,” McKnight said.
Mary-Ann Muffoletto, public relations specialist with USU Public Relations and Marketing Office, also said the expansion supports some of President Kermit L. Hall’s hopes for USU.
“The whole concept fits very well with President Hall’s goal of partnerships internally and externally,” Muffoletto said.
She said the expansion correlates with Gov. Mike Leavitt’s goal of having high-tech clean industries with well-paid employment while saving natural beauty.
The main purpose of the Innovation Campus is to build and support partnerships between the university, community, government and industry to help the state of Utah and society, McKnight said.
Currently there are 38 tenants at the Innovation Campus which can range from businesses and companies to university faculty and students. Tenants at the Innovation Campus aren’t restricted to just local or even American research groups. Siemens, an electronics company out of Germany, is a current tenant at the Innovation Campus and is working with the College of Engineering and graduate students in engineering.
Expansion of the site could occur on land already owned by the university which is presently being used for agriculture research as well as land owned by Cache Valley. McKnight said the Innovation Campus is working with the College of Agriculture as well as the Cache Valley Initiative to provide both the Innovation Campus and College of Agriculture with the land needed to improve technology while still preserving Cache Valley’s beauty.
“We want to make this a win-win situation for everyone,” McKnight said.
After a trip to similar sites in North Carolina, McKnight and others involved also hope the expansions can construct and divide the campus into different sections of buildings or “neighborhood clusters.” According to the Innovation Campus Web site, linked to the USU Web site, future expansions of “neighborhood clusters” may include the engineering and the space dynamics program, bio-technology and genomics, information technology, environmental sciences, microelectronics and wireless technology and pharmaceutical research and development.