Ask people how to find the new Auburn University Research and Innovation Campus in Huntsville and you might get an answer like this: “You can’t miss it.” Auburn’s new Huntsville home stands out even in Cummings Research Park, which bills itself as the country’s second-largest research and technology park with 300 companies and 26,000-plus employees.

Tech company LogiCorp. originally acquired the 9 acres of land and erected the building Auburn now occupies at 345 Voyager Way. Now, Auburn has big plans for the land and 40,000 square feet of ultra-modern space. A mini-campus with more buildings is coming, Auburn says, and this is just the start.

“We know that Huntsville is ‘a’ if not ‘the’ center of tech today in Alabama … so university leadership felt like we had to have a greater presence there,” Auburn Interim Engineering Dean Steve Taylor said in January.

Huntsville is the post-graduation destination of most Auburn engineering students, Taylor said, and research done in the city by Auburn graduates is growing. Auburn needed a bigger and better presence, Taylor said.

The campus will be a new home for Auburn in the area and connect its educational, outreach and extension programs. And it looks like it will be busy. This spring, the College of Architecture, Design and Construction will host a recruiting event for new students; the Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) Lab will host an event; the College of Veterinary Medicine will host an event focusing on detection dogs; the College of Engineering will host a graduate research symposium and the College of Business will host a graduation ceremony for online students from the area.

“We’re not really going to teach classes in that facility,” Taylor said, “but we do have online programs and that facility allows us to serve those students better by giving them a place to study if they need to or a proctor for an exam.”

Research “will be focused on applied research,” Taylor said. “If the Missile Defense Agency has a need they need help solving, we’re going to do our best to help.” He also mentioned NASA, the Army, the FBI and tech companies inside and outside the arsenal gate.

Long term, the university envisions up to 50 people – mostly engineering subject matter experts – working and training in the center. “It’s more of a training (focus) than actual teaching,” center Business Manager Vicki Kretzschmar repeated during a recent tour.

The new building is a showcase of style and function with space for training and research. Walls of glass along hallways open offices, meeting and dining spaces to natural views. The meeting and dining spaces will be available to other groups, Kretzschmar said.

Until the new center, Auburn had operated those functions in smaller space at the nearby Davidson Technologies building, and some smartphone maps can still point visitors there. That mapping technology will catch up soon.

Auburn’s vision for the new Huntsville facility sounds like Wernher von Braun’s 1961 vision for the Huntsville research institute that became the University of Alabama in Huntsville. UAH has grown to 9,237 students now with 3,194 in engineering.

“There’s room for both of us, and I’m saying that genuinely,” Taylor said. He acknowledged the potential for competition, but said, “The market is very strong for engineers. It’s going to take all of us – UAH, UA, UAB, Auburn, (University of) South Alabama – all of us producing young engineers to fill the demand that’s out there.”

“I think long-term there’s a better opportunity for us to collaborate with each other,” Taylor said of the area’s other schools. America faces tough challenges in Huntsville’s focus areas of national security and space exploration, he said. “There are things, expertise, at UAH we don’t have,” Taylor said. “There’s expertise we have that they don’t have. There’s an opportunity to collaborate.”

Huntsville isn’t the only place Auburn is growing. The university is also expanding in Birmingham where it acquired a building recently. Being immersed in communities statewide is in the school’s “tradition and culture” dating to its land grant beginnings, Taylor said.