The University of Texas San Antonio is preparing to break ground soon for a $90 million School of Data Science and National Security Collaboration Center on its downtown campus.
The university says the center, as well as a proposed $161.2 million Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Careers Building on the downtown campus, will help anchor the university to San Antonio’s high-tech corridor.
“These projects will set UTSA and San Antonio apart as pioneers in data science and cybersecurity, provide innovative solutions for government and industry, and better meet the city’s escalating workforce needs,” President Taylor Eighmy says.
The 167,000-square-foot School of Data Science and National Security Collaboration Center will be erected along Dolorosa Street abutting San Pedro Creek east of Interstate 35. The university expects to kick off construction in mid-December. The anticipated completion date for construction is July 2022.
The new facility will house the School of Data Science, including 85,725 square feet of classroom, laboratory and research space.
The new school will place UTSA’s 70-plus faculty members in cybersecurity, cloud computing, data and analytics, and artificial intelligence under one roof. The center will house the departments of Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Statistics and Data Sciences, Information Systems and Cyber Security, and the Open Cloud Institute
The building will have 81,500 square feet of innovation space, laboratories and research facilities for the National Security Collaboration Center—a hub for government, university and industry partners in the cybersecurity field.
The center also will house a ground-level café and a large multipurpose space for students and partner tenants.
Nearby, the demolition of a former county and federal jail building will clear space for the UTSA Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Careers Building, a planned expansion of the College of Business.
A construction date has yet to be determined because university officials are still in the initial fundraising and planning phases for the proposed 250,000-square-foot building.
The projects are part of the first phase of a 10-year plan to expand the university’s Downtown Campus.
