By Cody Mello-Klein | cmelloklein@alextimes.com

City Council unanimously approved designs for Virginia Tech’s first Innovation Campus academic building alongside amendments to the broader North Potomac Yard Master Plan during Saturday’s public hearing.

Council’s approval represents a significant step forward for Potomac Yard’s Innovation District and a comprehensive plan that aims to make the neighborhood an example of environmental sustainability.

The Virginia Tech building was the big-ticket item at the hearing, but it was only one part of a broader series of votes being taken on the North Potomac Yard Master Plan. Council also approved coordinated development district concept plan amendments; a subdivision request; a street naming case; a transportation management plan special use permit and seven building development special use permits, including the Virginia Tech academic building.

In addition to the Virginia Tech building, the DSUPs included two residential buildings, one with 262 units and one with 212 units, and four office buildings, ranging from six to eight stories.

The building designs both recall the neighborhood’s industrial past while integrating the sleek, glassy designs one would expect of a district with “innovation” in its name.

The academic building approved was one of three buildings that will make up the Virginia Tech Innovation Campus. It features a gem-like design that uses glass and vertical fins to capture sunlight to optimize solar energy performance and provide passive cooling inside. The building will also include space for programming in the ground lobby and a two-story student work space, including an outdoor balcony area.

Like the rest of the campus, in its final form, parking will be entirely underground, although the initial site plan includes interim surface parking lots that will be phased out as the campus project proceeds, City Planner Sara Brandt-Vorel said.

The design of the building drew universal praise from council, including Councilor and brick advocate Del Pepper.

“I think the buildings are interesting, and that’s what we wanted here,” Pepper said. “We didn’t just want a whole bunch of square boxes.”

With the seven DSUPs come a number of community benefits. In addition to funding new public art projects and Bike Share access, Virginia Tech and other developers have committed to contributing $14.5 million in affordable housing, $5 million toward a new theater and $15 million toward a new school, Brandt-Vorel said.

Councilor Amy Jackson, seconded by Pepper, moved to approve the amendments to the master plan as well as the DSUPs and other proposals. Council unanimously approved them.

City Council also considered the North Potomac Yard Environmental Sustainability Master Plan on Saturday.

The plan aims to establish a comprehensive, forward-thinking set of guidelines that will guide the city’s environmental policy in the new Innovation District.

The plan before council was the result of conversations between city staff, the Environmental Policy Commission and the Planning Commission. It sets goals to achieve district-wide carbon neutrality by 2040 and carbon neutral buildings by 2030, explore alternative energy sources and district-wide solutions that reduce carbon emissions.

“I think the comment that was probably heard the most loudly was developing a zero-carbon analysis for the entire district and representative buildings to help inform the strategies that would be employed in the first phase and subsequent phases for redevelopment of North Potomac Yard,” City Planner Richard Lawrence said.

Out of those conversations, city staff developed a series of specific conditions that would need to be met in each DSUP proposed in the district, including: clear reporting requirements for how targets and metrics are measured through implementation, universal utilization of electrification as a primary power source and additional guarantees to ensure buildings are meeting carbon neutrality goals and sustainability targets.

The Planning Commission approved the master plan 5-2 with two amendments. The commission recommended that the plan be updated to document the progress of completed and planned projects toward achieving carbon neutrality and that a zero-carbon analysis of the entire district be performed and presented to council, the EPC and Planning Commission within six months of approval.

Kathie Hoekstra, chair of the EPC, supported the Planning Commission’s recommendation and said she believes the plan, particularly the district-wide analysis, “should set a bar to be exceeded by each future city developer.” “This analysis would identify the short-, medium- and long-term opportunities for benefits that reduce carbon emissions and improve resilience and reliability, a mandate for our current climate emergency,” Hoekstra said.

Staff expressed concern since the amendment involves a recommended annual review of the document that could impact developers who had already-approved DSUPs.

“Staff’s recommendation will be a much larger lead time so that everyone can have these conversations, so that when these buildings come to you, there is clear direction in terms of the environmental elements,” P&Z Deputy Director Jeff Farner said.

Director of P&Z Karl Moritz said that reports on the master plan would ideally occur right before another major development is approved in order to allow council, the EPC and Planning Commission enough time to evaluate whether progress on the plan’s goals has been made.

Vice Mayor Elizabeth Bennett-Parker proposed approving the plan, seconded by Councilor Mo Seifeldein, subject to amendments designed to address some of staff’s concerns. In Bennett-Parker’s proposed changes, applicants would be required to update the master plan to document progress toward achieving carbon neutrality goals at least 120 days before a DSUP public hearing. Bennett-Parker also proposed that the district-wide zero carbon analysis be submitted to the city within a year of council’s approval.

Council approved the plan unanimously.

“This document is really extraordinary,” Pepper said. “As we’ve said, we’re breaking new ground here and I really am hopeful that it will be taken up by other communities as a template.”

Council’s universal support for the future of Potomac Yard and the Innovation District could herald the next phase of development in an area of the city that has a history of driving progress, Mayor Justin Wilson said.

“This was a railyard. This was one of the most significant industrial sites in the city with all that goes along with that, and it was an economic engine for the city,” Wilson said. “Now, we are essentially taking the next step in making this the economic engine for the city for the next generation.”

(Read more: Council approves demolition of Heritage buildings)