Excitement is building in Grand County for the grand opening of Utah State University Moab’s new campus. To celebrate the event, USU will host a ribbon-cutting ceremony on April 1, 2022 at 3:30 p.m. All members of the public are welcome to attend the ribbon cutting.

“Our new building is finally a reality for our community,” said Lianna Etchberger, USU Moab associate vice president. “It’s been a long time coming. There was much prior planning for me to build upon. I am so grateful for our donors, especially Peter Lawson and Anne Wilson, who helped tip the project from concept to reality. We hope that this building is inviting and welcoming to everyone who visits.”

The ceremony will also include several events to get the community involved, including the creation of a time capsule that will be sealed and re-opened in 2072. Various items from the community will be placed inside the capsule. Community members are encouraged to put on their thinking caps to place items in the capsule that will have historical significance.

In addition to the grand opening ceremony, community members can also get involved by donating to the USU Moab Community Scholarship. This scholarship fund will go toward creating an endowment level scholarship to assist one local student from our community to attend classes at the new Moab Campus Building each year. USU Moab creates an incredible and exciting opportunity for students, community members, and visitors to learn together, gather together, improve together, and support each other.

“With our degree and technical education certificate programs as well as non-credit activities for kids and adults, there truly is something for everyone in our community,” Etchberger said. “I hope that this building and all the options it offers will help more student at Grand County High School imagine themselves at home at USU Moab and to consider post-secondary education to create greater opportunities for themselves.”

USU Moab’s new campus will be a combustion-free, net-zero energy building that is passively designed to harness solar energy. Some of the building’s features include ground-source heating and cooling, solar array parking canopies that double as parking shade, PVC-free interior finishes, natural day lighting and natural material construction. These features, which are all designed to reduce the campus’ carbon footprint, have led to the campus design receiving a silver-level LEED certification. This certification makes the USU Moab campus one of the greenest buildings on any USU campus.

The state-of-the-art facility will have indoor and outdoor spaces for hands-on learning experiences. Students and visitors will enjoy a campus reflecting Moab’s natural landscape, linking them to their broader ecosystem. The building will include new facilities for fabrication and welding, building construction, health professions, science teaching and an Extension demonstration kitchen.

Contributors to the new USU Moab building include Peter Lawson, My Good Fund, the Janet Quinney Lawson Foundation, the Emma Eccles Jones Foundation, the George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Foundation, Community Development Finance Alliance, Moab Regional Hospital, Desert Rivers Credit Union, Moab City, Grand County, the Holyoak Family and the Rocky Mountain Power Blue Sky Renewable Energy Grant.

For more information on USU Moab’s new campus and how to get involved, visit moab.usu.edu/newcampus