The Utah Science Technology and Research initiative is a massive taxpayer investment to leverage university research into economic drivers by nurturing technologies with commercial potential.
"The primary purposes of the building are to give our USTAR teams top-of-the-line facilities in which to conduct their work, and to foster the connection with industry," said Dinesh Patel, managing director of vSpring Capital and USTAR board chairman. "We foresee the facility as a conduit for industry-sponsored research and new commercialized technology, bringing the efforts of the private sector and higher education closer together."
The University of Utah, meanwhile, remains in the design phase for its USTAR facility, a 185,000-square-foot building to be placed in the middle of the campus golf course. The $130 million structure is envisioned to be the first in a four-building complex known as the Interdisciplinary Quad, purposefully situated between the U.'s health sciences and engineering complexes.
The U.'s USTAR faculty is working in a recently renovated Research Park building the U. purchased from the pharmaceutical firm NPS. USTAR officials hope to start on the U. building next spring, with an opening in 2012.
The USU building should be ready by early 2011. The first tenant will be USTAR's Center for Advanced Nutrition, which explores associations between diet and obesity, Type 2 diabetes and other ailments. The Center for Advanced Sensing and Imaging and the biofuel-focused Energy Lab Team will continue occupying the neighboring Building 620. USU donated this 33,000-square-foot building and its land to meet its $10 million matching obligation toward the new building.
"We hope they will be a magnet for industry collaboration and we hope they will attract interdisciplinary collaboration with existing faculty members who already support these innovation areas. All of those programs build on existing strengths at USU," said USTAR executive director Ted McAleer.
bmaffly@sltrib.com
