First Batch of Students Started Classes Today at Virginia Tech Innovation Campus in Potomac Yard
“This is an incredibly important moment for us, the opening of Academic Building One” -- Dr. Lance Collins

ALEXANDRIA, VA – You’ve seen it a thousand times. You’ve driven past it or encountered it on your Potomac Yard walks. The looming glass structure glinting in the sunlight, the Potomac River reflected in its towering façade between the Potomac Yard Metro and Amazon HQ2.
While the much-anticipated grand opening of the Virginia Tech Innovation Campus isn’t until February 28, today the campus marched one step closer to that big day. Today (Jan. 21) the high-tech graduate school flung open its doors to its first cohort of students.
“This is an incredibly important moment for us, the opening of Academic Building One,” Dr. Lance Collins told reporters. He is vice president & executive director of the Virginia Tech Innovation Campus. The graduate campus had been operating at multiple locations but for the first time today, all the innovation campuses came together in one location, all the students now under one roof.
“You can see the students who are just arriving, we had a wonderful moment of celebration with them,” Collins beamed. “But really, it’s the power of what this campus is all about. A place where everyone is going to come together, the tech ecosystem, academic faculty that are extraordinary, and an incredible population of students that is going to continue to grow and really influence the ecosystem of the region at scale,” Collins explained. “In my opinion, we will create one of the great tech ecosystems in the country.”

The Campus
It was over three years in the making and today Virginia Tech opened the first academic building of its 3.5-acre campus. The building rises to 11 stories and spans 300,000 square feet. As the media was taken on a tour of the cavernous building, one could hear the incessant whirring and whining of construction as the campus readies the facility for that grand opening February 28.
The location of the Innovation Campus is strategic. On the top floor, reporters gazed out at a panoramic view with the Washington Monument rising like a phoenix off in the distance. That iconic obelisk underscored the coveted location.
“This location is important because of the proximity to the federal government but it really came out of an initiative to bring Amazon HQ2 into the region,” Collins continued. “This was a significant element because it turns out tech talent is really one of the limiting resources for the tech community. And so our presence here and producing students at the scale that we will ultimately reach will really impact the broader region. It’s not just Amazon, it’s all of the tech companies that are in the area, and the defense industry,” said Collins. “We envision a really strong tech district here.”
Are you hoping graduates will stay here, settle in Alexandria, create a boon on the economic landscape? Zebra asked Collins. “One of the words that we use is stickiness,” Collins replied. “The idea that we would like our talented graduates to stay in the area because that really bootstraps the area’s ecosystem. One of the ways in which we are approaching that is that students will be working on projects that are sourced from local companies.”
“In some ways, they are already building relationships with the broader tech ecosystem in the area in the hope that will encourage our students to stay,” Collins said. “Our goal is to grow the ecosystem in this region as quickly as we possibly can.”
The top floor offers a sweeping vista of that slice of Alexandria, overlooking a tapestry of Potomac River, train tracks, airport, and Washington, DC. All the pieces of the puzzle came together right there on the top floor, the federal government and a transportation network. “Connectivity is the lifeblood for technology,” Collins told Zebra. “It really is all about people’s ideas coming together to solve a particular problem. So having close access to the airport and Metro allows easy access for the tech community, the students, the faculty to come together. We believe this will be a gathering place for future technology. And so that connectivity is actually central to everything that we want to do.”
And Amtrak’s not that far away, Zebra reminded Collins. “Absolutely,” he laughed. “I ride Amtrak all the time!”
Graduate student Justin Dildy is studying engineering and computer science. He is from Virginia’s Tidewater region and earned his BS at Norfolk State University. “I have been paying attention to this program for quite some time,” Dildy told reporters. “I remember when I first heard about it that I wanted to come here. I want to be the one to lead a better future for the people behind me.”
Dildy appreciates the Metro card subsidy that students receive. It’s a new feature, subsidized by the state. Dildy, however, lives near campus and can walk to class.
The campus will provide 169 parking spaces and eight electric charging stations in the underground parking lot.
“This graduate program is a long time coming for me,” Dildy told Zebra.
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