Utah News Dispatch
Construction of new innovation hub starts at former prison site in Draper
Rendering of the Nucleus Institute’s planned Convergence Point. (Courtesy of Gensler and FFKR)
The former site of the Utah State Prison in Draper is now a blank canvas as state leaders prepare the ground to build a massive development that’s been named The Point.
Thursday, the construction of its “Convergence Point,” a centerpiece for the project, was celebrated.
After receiving $50 million from the Utah Legislature in 2022 to fund its construction, the hall is envisioned to foster innovation among students of Utah public colleges, researchers, entrepreneurs and industry leaders. The center will offer classrooms, coworking spaces, offices for universities and even dorms for students coming from across the state.
SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said during the center’s groundbreaking ceremony that it’s “where a statewide idea really begins to take a physical shape.”
Utah officials betting on this institute to become a hub where research and technology materialize
“It will give people a place to meet, to see research firsthand, to work on real problems, and of course, to find the partners who can bring an idea to market,” Cox said. “We want students and researchers, businesses, investors and government all in one space together, sitting at the same table and actually getting to work.”
The center is expected to open in summer 2029.
The groundbreaking also followed the reorganization of what the Legislature called the “Utah Innovation Lab” into the “Nucleus Institute,” which is led by Jefferson Moss, commissioner of Utah’s Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity and former Utah House majority leader.
“Our goal and ambition here is to make Utah the fastest place in the country, hopefully the fastest place in the world, to be able to move ideas from discovery to impact, to be able to bring those different groups together to solve big problems,” Moss said.
Those big problems could include housing affordability, water and air issues and furthering emerging technologies, Angela Smith, Chief Operating Officer of the Nucleus Institute said.
“I’m not advocating for one career path over another, but I know that some of our best and brightest students are sitting on the sidelines because they have limiting beliefs and they are forced to choose a career when they haven’t been exposed to a variety of opportunities,” Smith said after talking about her time in Silicon Valley, which inspired her career change from teaching.
When the new center opens, the Utah System of Higher Education will help coordinate the Nucleus Institute’s work to help make the connections necessary.
The vision for the site also includes “research demonstrations, startup showcases, meetings with investors, workforce programs and public events,” according to a news release. Research is expected to remain within university campuses, but the center “will give businesses and the public a place to see that work firsthand, meet the people behind it and explore ways to put it to use.”
Geoffrey Landward, Commissioner of Higher Education, said he was also excited about the potential of an innovation hub like this one.
“We’re going to take all these stakeholders, gather their ideas, their research, their imagination, their resources, bring them in close quarters, accelerate them, and let them collide,” Landward said. “And just like in physics, we can’t fully predict what comes out of those collisions. And that’s the point.”
