The City of Richardson in partnership with The University of Texas at Dallas (UT Dallas) today celebrated the grand opening of The IQ® Headquarters (The IQ® HQ) at 1302 East Collins Boulevard in Richardson. The event marked the reactivation of a newly modernized building located in the heart of the Richardson Innovation Quarter (the Richardson IQ® or The IQ®), a 1,200-acre district which serves as the City’s living laboratory for big ideas and groundbreaking technology. The building comprises 27,500 square feet and supports the City’s start-up and entrepreneur community along with a powerful, onsite partnership with UT Dallas to spur and support the area’s tech business ecosystem.

“The IQ® HQ opening today celebrated the continued growth of our longtime partnership with UT Dallas and also marked the next step towards achieving Richardson’s ambition of being the premier tech hub in Texas,” said Richardson Mayor Paul Voelker. “This facility will serve as the centerpiece of our thriving innovation district, while providing abundant opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration and knowledge-sharing, advanced research, significant job creation and development of our region’s tech-focused entrepreneurs.”

Six new UT Dallas centers for emerging and novel technologies, which stem from multiple UT Dallas schools, will occupy a large portion of UTD's approximately 10,000 square feet of co-working, office and lab space in The IQ® Headquarters building. These include The Center for Applied AI & Machine Learning (CAIML), The Center for Applied AI at the Richardson Innovation Quarter with UT Dallas Expertise (CAIQUE), The Center for Imaging and Surgical Innovation (CISI), The Multi-Scale Integrated Interactive Intelligent Sensing (MINTS) Center, The Center for Smart Mobility (COSMO) and IQ Design. An extension of the university’s Venture Development Center is also located onsite.

“Today, we further our longstanding partnership with the City of Richardson as teams from across UT Dallas make their home in The IQ® Headquarters and work to develop solutions for some of our nation’s greatest business, medical, transportation and sustainability challenges,” said UT Dallas President Dr. Richard C. Benson. “The new center provides an ideal environment to collaborate, conduct our research and create a global impact alongside our City’s business community and other institutional partners.”

The City’s new Office of Economic Development and its Office of Strategic Initiatives are also housed within The IQ® HQ, and 3,000 square feet are dedicated to programming, networking and event space focused on attracting entrepreneurial and start-up activity to the area.

“Placing our economic development team in The IQ® HQ creates synergies we can’t reproduce anywhere else in the community, or even in North Texas,” said Richardson City Manager Don Magner. “It is a unique location where startups can comingle with research and investment channels, and we hope it will pay big dividends in the future for The IQ®.”

Approximately 7,000 square feet will be available for future expansion or flexible partnering opportunities. In the short term, several other City offices including the City Manager’s Office are temporarily housed in the facility in the wake of the recent fire at City Hall.

The multi-purpose facility was thoughtfully redesigned to strengthen collaborative innovation efforts and support the current IQ community while also implementing Smart City design technologies to accommodate future developments within the City. In addition, the building features the latest HVAC purification system, which incorporates many CDC and ASHREA guidelines for addressing COVID best practices, with MERV 14 filters, air cleaning ionizer in all employee area units and outside air economizer to ensure maximum fresh air exchanges. The IQ® HQ also adjoins the district’s newly extended Duck Creek Trail, which now provides a nearly two-mile, multi-use trail extension spanning the entire 1,200-acre IQ district.

About the Richardson Innovation Quarter

The Richardson Innovation Quarter, also known simply as Richardson IQ® or The IQ®, is a 1,200-acre urban hub in Richardson, Texas, with a rich heritage of innovation and entrepreneurship. As Texas’ premier tech hub, The IQ® is the City of Richardson’s living laboratory for big ideas and groundbreaking technology. The IQ® has historical significance as a home to Richardson’s leading technology and telecommunications firms making up the heart of the larger Telecom Corridor® area. Today it is home to Argo Data, Digital Realty, Ericsson, Honeywell, id Software, Raytheon, Siemens, Verizon and a multitude of smaller nano and other technology operations.