DALLAS — With a mission to provide underserved communities with robust educational opportunities, the University of North Texas at Dallas partnered with former Dallas Cowboys player Emmitt Smith to open 4315 Innovation Center.

Community and statewide leaders plus residents gathered for a ribbon-cutting on Jan. 27 at the southern Dallas facility.

What You Need To Know

  • Through a partnership with UNT-Dallas, Emmitt Smith has opened 4315 Innovation Center aimed at providing resources to students in the southern sector of Dallas

  • The 30,000 square-foot facility is a mixed-use building that will include retail and commercial space plus workforce training 

  • The Innovation Center will serve students as young as six years old

“Out of this place, we expect the birth of a nation out of here,” Smith said. “The right kind of birth. And we expect for people to come from here and go into the community and transform the community in a different way.”

Smith purchased the mixed-use property located across from the Dallas Veterans Affairs Medical Center on South Lancaster Road back in 2019 via his real estate company — E. Smith Communities.

“And I have an opportunity to take this platform, which God has blessed me with to share it with others,” Smith said. “And I’m trying to share it in the best way that I can, by inspiring others to be on a level of greatness and this center has a lot of potential for that. And as we continue to grow as a community and as people and we look beyond the barriers of limitations and knock these walls down, we can become a better society.”

Formerly the Dallas Urban League Center, the 30,000 square-foot center will allow UNT-Dallas to serve students ages 6-17 through what they describe as a multiple holistic perspectives ranging from social, recreational, emotional, mentorship, academia and leadership development via the UNT-Dallas’ Rising Blazers program.

When it launched in 2020, the goal of the program was to provide students in Oak Cliff and South Dallas a place to come after school, while offering mentorship and leadership development.

According to Nakia Douglas, executive director of TRIO & Pre-Collegiate Programs at UNT-Dallas, the 4315 Innovation Center will restore resources that have been neglected in the community.

 

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“Mr. Emmitt Smith made a commitment and said to me, ‘I am committed to this community’ and that was a plus for me,” said Dallas City councilwoman Carolyn King Arnold. “You have brought it here and now it is our job to take advantage of it.”

The once dilapidated building has transformed into a commercial office, workforce training and retail space, giving students in the southern sector of Dallas a chance to get the skills necessary to compete in the real world. For example, through the UNT-Dallas’ Caruth Police Institute, the center will host law enforcement training.

“It made me very, very happy to see this facility turn into what we call goldmine training," said Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson. "Let me express my strong appreciation for Emmitt Smith."

 

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For state Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, the opening of the Innovation Center will give UNT-Dallas an opportunity to connect with more students no matter their location.

“If you have 35,000, 40,000 students here in this area, you no longer have the conversation about the north and the south,” West said.