Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s proposed fiscal 2020 and 2021 state budgets look to fund two Northern Virginia university campuses that will help train some of the workforce destined to labor for Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN).
Virginia Tech would receive $382 million — $275 million in 2020 and $107 million in 2021 — for its planned Potomac Yard campus, sourced from the state’s higher-education operating fund and a loan from the Virginia College Building Authority. The 2020 funds are the exact amount needed to build the $1 billion innovation campus’ first structure, a 300,000-square-foot academic building, which the school hopes to complete in 2024.
George Mason University would receive just over $242 million in 2021 for its digital innovation campus and a parking garage on its Arlington grounds. George Mason was looking to secure some $125 million from the state so it could develop its “innovation district.” The school would also get $7.5 million in 2020, essentially the cost of knocking down an old building on the school’s existing Arlington Campus in order to make room for planned construction.