It’s an 11-story, 300,000-square-foot academic building — the biggest Virginia Tech has anywhere in the Commonwealth — and after years of planning and construction, school leaders are finally getting ready to cut the ribbon this week.
On Tuesday, Virginia Tech hosted a tour showing off the new Innovation Campus, which sits between Potomac Yard Center and the Potomac River in Alexandria.
On many floors, offices are clustered more toward the middle of the building so more natural light can stream into labs and workspaces. Solar panels face the east where the sun rises over the Potomac every morning. The eighth floor deck offers views of Maryland and D.C. that rival sights you can see at popular tourist attractions around the region.
“This is the embodiment of collaboration,” said Liza Morris, an assistant vice president for planning and university architect at Virginia Tech.
But the school is hopeful that as stunning as the aesthetics are inside and out, the work that happens inside the building will be even more stunning down the line. That ambition is also what helped make this Innovation Campus one of the selling points Northern Virginia used to convince Amazon to build its HQ2 just up the road in Crystal City.
“Amazon came, in part because the Commonwealth of Virginia invested in higher ed, and that produces talent and technology. And those are things that Amazon cares a lot about, so it’s a benefit to them,” said Lance Collins, executive director of the Innovation Campus. “But what’s important about us and our presence here is we’re not specific to one company. We’re actually working with a number of companies in the area.”
During a tour of the facility, graduate students, of which there are hundreds already taking classes there, were talking about their analysis of artificial intelligence, including what it got right and how things could go sideways. Others were seen working to make 6G — the next level of wireless communication — a reality.
There’s also a business school program there, because getting those innovations to market and seeing them become profitable is also important.
“I’d love to see this tech district grow in all kinds of ways and directions, some of which we anticipated, and maybe in ways that we didn’t even anticipate,” Collins said.
Another interesting feature of the building is a second floor area devoted to K-12 learners. That’s an aspect that’s still just getting off the ground, but it’s helped introduce local students, primarily middle and high schoolers, to robotics and other forms of computer sciences.
“Our K-12 programming is really just exposure to get students a chance to see what computer science is all about and how does it work,” Collins said, adding that’s where the pipeline into the graduate program at Virginia Tech will really begin. “If they have an interest, then we want them to be well prepared.”
Pamela Gilchrist, director of K-12 programs, said it’s not just field trips that are offered for students, but they’re willing to work with schools to provide programming on the campus or in their communities.
“We will still partner in the community and bring people here,” she said.
More people means more innovation, as other tech firms beyond Amazon establish their presence nearby as well.
“I believe this is really the start of a major shift in growth in the tech ecosystem in the greater D.C. area,” Collins said. “It’s more than just a campus. I think it’s really a catalyst for the development of that larger tech ecosystem.”
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