Virginia Tech Innovation Campus Announces New Site In Alexandria

ALEXANDRIA, VA—Virginia Tech announced an updated location for its future Innovation Campus in Alexandria Monday. Plans also include turning the Potomac Yard shopping center into a mixed-use development.

The campus will be located in Potomac Yard south of Four Mile Run and above the Regal Cinemas theater. The Potomac Yard Metro station will be a quarter mile away.

Virginia Tech originally pursued Oakville Triangle on Route 1 as the site for the Innovation Campus. The new Potomac Yard site is closer to the future Amazon headquarters in Pentagon City and Crystal City.

"We’re extremely pleased to have this opportunity, in partnership with Lionstone, to establish the Innovation Campus in the heart of the National Landing technology district," Virginia Tech President Tim Sands said in a news release. "It is the ideal location to support Virginia Tech’s bold plan to develop new tech talent, disciplines, programs, and human-centered research that will shape the economic future of the commonwealth and beyond."

The campus will be part of a 65-acre mixed-use development at the current Potomac Yard shopping center, property manager Lionstone Investments said. According to The Washington Post, the development could have residential units, office space, retail and hotel space.

"When the shopping center was originally approved, we all said it was an interim use," said Alexandria Mayor Justin Wilson at a news conference Monday. "We always envisioned the shopping center as redeveloping at some point."

The Virginia Tech Innovation Campus will train high-tech talent for Amazon and other companies at the master's and doctoral levels. The first master's degree students will enroll in fall 2020. They will locate in existing space near where campus buildings will be built. The campus is expected to be completed in 10 years and enroll 750 master's degree students and hundreds of doctoral degree students and postdoctoral fellows.

The Virginia Tech campus was announced along with the Amazon headquarters in November. Amazon said the Innovation Campus played a major role in choosing Arlington as the site for its second headquarters.