The former regional headquarters of global e-commerce giant eBay will soon transform into an innovative learning center outside of Salt Lake City, focused on training high-school students for in-demand jobs.
The Canyons School District Board of Education in December 2024 purchased the 36-acre eBay campus in Draper, Utah, and will develop the area into its new high-tech career-training center, with the 215,000-square-foot facility as the centerpiece. The project received the 2025 CoStar Impact Award for sale/acquisition of the year in Salt Lake City, as judged by real estate professionals familiar with the market.
The eBay building is fully furnished and equipped with computers, servers and other technology. It's surrounded by 16 acres of developable land, which the school district may use for a future elementary school building. The campus is located in the heart of Salt Lake County’s tech sector, amid Silicon Slopes and adjacent to The Point, a walkable and transit-oriented development under construction in Draper, where educational institutions will mix with businesses, incubators and accelerators.
This emerging growth area is preparing for an influx of families, and the timing was right to expand educational offerings, according to the Canyons School District Board of Education.
Canyons previously delivered career-focused learning at the Canyons Technical Education Center (CTEC). But due to growing demand, CTEC had outgrown its current location, and estimates showed that renovation costs would be prohibitively high.
The new location will serve as a learning hub where students can pursue a diploma, college credits and industry certifications in a wide range of in-demand fields like engineering, construction or health sciences.
About the deal: The school district plans to liquidate property it already owns to pay for the $50 million purchase. Existing capital fund revenue will also be put toward the purchase, with the remainder coming from short-term lease-revenue bonds. The center is projected to open in 2027.
What the judges said: "Canyons Innovation Center is an exemplary adaptive-reuse project, intended to convert a regional headquarters commercial building used by a tech company into an innovative learning center for high-school students," said Ajla Aksamija, a professor in the School of Architecture at the University of Utah.
They Made It Happen: Executives with the Canyons Board of Education including Rick L. Robins, superintendent, Leon Wilcox, chief financial officer and Brandon Fugal, chairman, Colliers.