Potomac Yard-VT Requested As Name For Future Metro Station

ALEXANDRIA, VA — Virginia Tech has requested that it be incorporated into the name of the future Potomac Yard Metro station. Should the proposal be approved, it would be called Potomac Yard-VT.

Virginia Tech's future Innovation Campus will be located near the north entrance of the Potomac Yard station. The first campus building is expected to be completed in 2024; the campus will have 750 master's degree students and hundreds of doctoral students and postdoctoral fellows when complete in 10 years. The Potomac Yard Metro station is expected to open in 2022.

The city believes adding Virginia Tech to the station name mostly meets Metro's naming policy. However, Metro's requirement of a "significant classroom presence" would need an exception approved by Metro's board. The campus is not expected to meet that requirement by the time the station opens.

The city and Metro do not anticipate impacts to the station construction schedule or costs if the name change process is conducted now.

The city reached out to residents, businesses, and Potomac Yard advisory groups within a half-mile radius of the station for feedback on the potential name. City Council will consider the proposal this fall. It is expected to be docketed for the Sept. 8 council meeting.

If City Council formally requests a name change, a Metro public feedback survey would follow. The city and Metro would review the results before the proposal goes to the Metro board for final approval.

The Virginia Tech Innovation Campus was announced in November 2018 along with Amazon's second headquarters in Arlington's Crystal City and Pentagon City. The campus will offer graduate programs to develop tech workers in the DC region and enroll its first students at existing Virginia Tech space in Falls Church in fall 2020. It will be part of a 65-acre mixed-use district led by Lionstone Investments and JBG Smith, which will include retail and residential uses.

The first phase of the development will include three academic buildings and five other buildings for residential, office and ground-level retail uses.

In June, City Council gave approval to the Coordinated Development District Concept Plan, allowing construction of roads, utilities and other infrastructure to begin later in 2020. Virginia Tech expects to break ground on the first academic building in 2021.