Here’s what Virginia Tech has planned for its Innovation Campus in NoVa

Earlier this year, we discussed how surrounding universities were preparing for Amazon to move into Northern Virginia, and Virginia Tech is making good on its promise with the announcement of its Innovation Campus plans.

We've selected a prime location for the #VTInnovationCampus! 🤩
🚇 Steps away from the future Potomac Yard Metrorail Station
🏗 Part of a 65-acre mixed-use district
🙌 Near the nation’s capital & leading tech companies, including @amazon's HQ2 projecthttps://t.co/OfK3tPum9q

— Virginia Tech (@virginia_tech) June 10, 2019

The Virginia Tech Innovation Campus will be located in Alexandria, Va., and will be part of a 65-acre, mixed-use district planned and developed by Lionstone and real estate investment firm JBG SMITH, Virginia Tech shared in a press release. This announcement comes after the university developed a tech talent pipeline incentive package with the Virginia Economic Development Partnership and other state officials to convince Amazon to move into NoVa.

“Lionstone uses analytics to identify the human capital driving economic growth, and then invests around them. Potomac Yard is an ideal location to create a sustainable mixed-use community where innovation, economic vitality, and a deep pool of technology talent can intersect and thrive,” said Lionstone President Jane Page said in a statement.

While the 1 million-square-foot graduate campus is being built over the next 10 years, students will enroll in an existing space adjacent to the site starting in 2020. As Technical.ly DC previously reported, the first 100 students will enroll in Master’s degree programs at Virginia Tech’s Innovation Campus next year, with plans to enroll 750 Master’s degree candidates and train hundreds of doctoral students and postdoctoral fellows when the campus is completed.

The new campus will be in proximity of the new Potomac Yard Metro station, Amazon’s second headquarters and the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

Here’s a rendering of the campus’ location:

The campus will mainly focus on supporting graduate degree programs and research opportunities in computer sciences and software engineering with an emphasis on high-demand areas, including data sciences, analytics and collective decisions, security and the internet of things and technology and policy. The layout of the campus will include classrooms, incubator space for startup and research development, offices and convening space for events.

The university is currently in search of a VP and an executive director to lead the campus.