Virginia Tech is celebrating the grand opening of the initial academic building at its Innovation Campus, located just outside Washington, D.C. This new facility was originally conceived as part of the university’s pitch to attract Amazon’s second headquarters, HQ2, to the Commonwealth.
A ribbon cutting is scheduled for the 11-story, 300,000-square-foot building at 3625 Potomac Ave. in Alexandria, Virginia. (Alan Karchmer/OTTO, courtesy of SmithGroup)
The 11-story, 300,000-square-foot building, located at 3625 Potomac Ave. in Alexandria, Virginia, completed construction in January and has since begun welcoming students. The official ribbon-cutting ceremony is scheduled for this week.
The university, with its main campus in Blacksburg, Virginia, plans to use the new space in the National Landing area – just across the river from the nation’s capital – to cultivate the next generation of tech talent. The curriculum will primarily focus on graduate education programs in computer science and computer engineering, along with specific coursework for business students.
In 2018, Amazon selected National Landing as the location for its East Coast corporate office, also known as HQ2. New York City was also chosen as a site, but Amazon later canceled those plans. The first phase of Amazon’s HQ2 in Virginia opened in May 2023. National Landing encompasses parts of the Crystal City and Pentagon City neighborhoods in Arlington County, as well as Potomac Yard in Alexandria.
“We can already see that our proximity here is making a difference,” said Lance Collins, Vice President and Executive Director of the Virginia Tech Innovation Campus, during a media preview event. He added that Virginia Tech students are already working with Amazon on various projects housed in Academic Building One, the name of the new building.
The roughly $1 billion Virginia Tech Innovation Campus was originally slated to open earlier but faced delays due to supply chain issues. The overall project cost approximately $302 million, according to Sven Shockey, the vice president and design director with SmithGroup, the architecture firm for the project.
On the building’s design, Shockey noted that the design incorporates features that will improve energy efficiency. This is achieved through solar installations on the roof and integrated technology on the sides of the building that help generate electricity. The building also features an auditorium with seating for up to 300 attendees, dedicated spaces for K-12 programs, multiple classrooms, and a specialized center for artificial intelligence and data analytics. There’s even a 465-square-foot, two-story drone testing cage located on the third and fourth floors.
Currently, more than 500 graduate students are enrolled in courses at Academic Building One, according to Collins. From the student perspective, Sydney Johns, a Virginia Tech doctoral student in computer science, stated during the media tour, “I was just really excited to be closer to a lot more job opportunities and things going on here in the Northern Virginia area.”
The first Innovation Campus class, comprised of about 75 students, began in the fall of 2020. Before the new campus was built, instruction was based out of a Virginia Tech location in Falls Church, Virginia.
Once fully built out, the Innovation Campus, situated just a short walk from the Potomac Yard Metro station (which opened in 2023), is expected to accommodate approximately 750 master’s students and 200 doctoral students, as stated in materials shared by SmithGroup.
There are plans for two additional properties on the campus, currently utilized as surface parking, according to Liza Morris, Virginia Tech’s assistant vice president for planning and university architect. Collins indicated that the timeline for upcoming construction wasn’t available at the time, but the future buildings are projected to be around 150,000 square feet apiece.
SmithGroup served as the architect for the project, and other collaborators involved with the project included A&F Engineers, Form Architects, Core Studio Design, Sorba Engineering, CM Kling and Associates, Patrica Hord Graphik Design, Brightree Studios, Polysonics, LJB, Rich and Associates, and the Forella Group.
