The Tech Accelerator, formerly known as the REAC building. Photo by Chester Beltowski/The Dakota Student.

Last week on Oct. 9 UND officially renamed the UND REAC building to the UND Tech Accelerator. The idea and process to rename the building started last year when the university purchased the building from the UND Research Foundation.

The UND Research Enterprise and Commercialization (REAC) building is used for housing research facilities and office space available to rent. Since the purchase of the building from the UND Research Foundation, finding interested parties to use the facility has been difficult.

With the new name, UND is hopeful more people will step forward to use the building’s resources. The building in total is 50,000 square feet and has great spaces for research opportunities.

“It’s not well understood what that acronym is” said Kevan Rusk, facility director for the Tech Accelerator.

By rebranding the building, located on the far west point of campus, UND is hoping to see new life brought to the building and put the struggling times in the past.

Choosing the name Tech Accelerator was not a simple task for the university. A lot of brainstorming and research eventually came to the decision to adopt the name “Tech Accelerator.”

“It seems like this is a simple name, but there was a lot of discussion and vetting that went into it,” Rusk said.

Changes to the signs on the building will take a bit longer than the actual name change but once a logo design is created students and faculty can expect to see the changed name on the building.

Many students or even people living in Grand Forks were unaware of what the REAC building was and how it benefited to UND. With the new name and label of Tech Accelerator the school hopes that more interested parties will begin using the facility for research.

Parker Payne a staff writer for The Dakota Student. He can be reached at [email protected].