A New Space for Discovery

UNT is constructing a Science and Technology Building to support its growing research enterprise. 

To support its historic growth as a Carnegie-ranked Tier One public research university, the University of North Texas is constructing a multidisciplinary research building on its Denton campus set to be completed in late 2026. 

The 111,000-square-foot UNT Science and Technology Building, at the southwest corner of West Mulberry Street and Avenue C, is designed by SmithGroup and being constructed by Skanska. It will fulfill an expanding need for more modern facilities that support collaborative and interdisciplinary research while creating experiential learning opportunities for students. The project is possible thanks to $103.4 million in tuition revenue bonds authorized by the 87th Texas Legislature in 2021.  

“This building has been a dream for many of us at UNT for a while,” says Pamela Padilla, UNT’s vice president for research and innovation. “As we continue our rise as a Tier One research university, we’re excited to see how facilities like this one will open up new opportunities for technological innovation to drive our economy and bring about impactful research that will make a difference in our society.” 

UNT has experienced unprecedented growth for its research enterprise in recent years. In fiscal year 2024, UNT had over $124 million in total research expenditures of which $49.3 million are federal and private funds for research. The growth builds on an impressive fiscal year 2023, when researchers garnered a record high total of sponsored project awards with more than $86 million in funding from top national agencies such as the U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Department of Education, U.S. National Institutes of Health and U.S. National Science Foundation.  

UNT’s research initiatives also drew investment from the state. In 2023, Texas lawmakers approved more than $3 billion in a new research endowment, the Texas University Fund (TUF), for emerging research institutions across the state, including UNT. The investment from the state will deliver more than $20 million in additional annual research funding to UNT.  

Through these investments, UNT researchers are advancing fields critical to growing the U.S. economy like semiconductors and additive manufacturing, supporting future space exploration through more resilient equipment for extreme environments and helping solve pressing environmental and health issues in the state and beyond. 

This growth underscores the demand for increased facilities dedicated to research on campus. UNT already is updating existing spaces, including improvements to the university’s three greenhouse complexes — two on the main campus and one at UNT’s Discovery Park. A $14 million renovation inside its Science Research Building has transformed the building’s second floor into a more collaborative space for researchers with open-concept laboratories, research support spaces, faculty offices, workspaces for graduate students and collaborative meeting rooms. UNT’s Materials Research Facility already offers a suite of powerful analytical instruments used for true 3D characterization and processing, and with support from TUF, it will significantly enhance its electron microscopy capabilities over the next year. 

The new Science and Technology Building will offer more space for expanding research areas such as biomedical engineering, physics, biology, chemistry, data science and computer science and engineering. Building components will include flexible wet and dry open computational laboratories; support lab spaces; core facilities to enhance research capacity and data analysis capabilities; clinical research labs; research offices and workstations and collaborative meeting spaces to support interdisciplinary research initiatives.  

“To solve really challenging questions that society faces or to develop new technologies, it takes people from different areas and different fields,” Padilla says. “If you put them together in the same building in the same space, which universities are set up to be able to do, you are more likely to have much more creativity come out and more projects that wouldn’t have been envisioned otherwise.” 

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