In what they’ve labeled as a “generational opportunity,” Canyons School District plans to turn eBay’s massive 36-acre Draper campus into a career and technical education high school.
For $50 million, the district gets a 215,000-square-foot fully-furnished and wired building plus 16 acres of developable land. Building a new campus would cost about $500 per square foot, the district said, whereas buying this existing space will knock the cost down to $230 per square foot. Some of the most expensive parts of building a school, such as an auditorium, are already in place.
“At this new center, our students will become prepared for the high-demand jobs in Silicon Slopes and in other growing industries in our state and across the country,” said Superintendent Rick Robins in an announcement after the district board approved the purchase contract in a 5-1 vote.
“We envision partnerships with higher education learning labs, where students will work with elite instructors [and] professional mentors to solve real world problems.”
Career and technical education programs are not new in Utah but the number of options has grown, as have the conversation around these programs.
The building is fairly new. eBay opened it in 2013 with a promise to create 2,200 jobs by 2031 in exchange for a $38.2 million tax incentive. Earlier this year the company put it up for sale. The district said it had been in purchase talks for the past six months.
The district’s existing Career and Technical Education Center in Sandy is 42 years old and officials said it would cost more to renovate the campus than rebuild it. The 65,000-square-foot building sits on seven acres, which the district also feels constrains its ability to grow.
Several of the career and technical education programs have a wait list, partly due to space limitations, said district Business Administrator Leon Wilcox.
The new space in Draper will replace the Sandy location.
Wilcox said they could also look at putting other things on the land, like a health clinic for employees or child care.
The district has not announced a lot of details about its plan, but it anticipates the new high school will open in the fall of 2026. There’s also the possibility that a new west Draper elementary school could be built on the land. The district said that option would allow them to respond to growth from the future Point of the Mountain development.
In a statement, eBay said it was “happy to learn that Canyons School District had approved the contract” and was excited for the campus to become a “hub of learning designed to cultivate the tech leaders of the future.”
The company added it was “committed to Salt Lake City and will continue to evaluate all available local options to ensure the best outcome for our people and eBay.”
The lone board member who voted against the contract, Holly Neibaur, said she was dissenting not because of the board’s vision for the space, but because of how it was planning to pay for it.
To come up with the $50 million for the property, the district plans to use some capital funds and sell other district properties. But the majority of funds will come from issuing lease-revenue bonds, which do not need voter approval.
Neibaur wants the district to pay with general obligation bonds, which do have to be approved by voters. She said this would have allowed more public input in the process.
Other board members said the district needed to act fast to prepare students for high-demand jobs.
“Waiting is not an option if we want to be on the cutting edge, and this building is not going to wait,” said Amanda Oaks. “There will be plenty of opportunity for public input on programming the center and other possible uses of the land.”
The district plans to hold a public hearing about the lease revenue bonds in October and anticipates issuing them in mid-November. The board expects to close on the purchase in December.
