Aerospace institute becoming a reality in Hampton

Courtesy of the National Institute of Aerospace

The institute will be the first tenant of the Hampton Roads Center North Campus, which will ultimately house six buildings, such as the one above.

By Allison Connolly,
The Virginian-Pilot © March 13, 2004

HAMPTON — The National Institute of Aerospace will finally get its own space next year, as officials broke ground on the site March 12.
For more than a year, the research institute, a partnership between seven universities and NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, has been operating out of a small building nearby.

The institute has 30 full-time and part-time graduate students and 35 professors from the member schools working on 60 research projects. In the past year, the program has received $12 million in research funding, of which $5 million has gone back to the schools.

Ultimately, officials hope the institute will employ more than 300 people and generate as much as $20 million a year in research dollars.
While the institute doesn’t grant degrees, students and faculty from member schools will have the chance to work alongside Langley engineers on projects for such customers as the Department of Defense, the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“They’ll do research inside NASA Langley with Langley’s expertise,” said Robert Lindberg , president of the institute. The member schools are: Hampton University; the University of Virginia; Virginia Tech; North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University; North Carolina State University; the University of Maryland; and Georgia Tech. Affiliate members include Old Dominion University and the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg.

The nonprofit was created by Langley with funding potentially worth $118 million over the first five years.

“The first five years will be intense,” said Carolyn W. Meyers, provost of North Carolina A&T and chairwoman of the institute.

The institute will be the first tenant of the Hampton Roads Center North Campus, an office park being developed by Craig Davis Properties Inc. of Cary, N.C., on 250 acres bought from the Hampton Industrial Authority.

The campus will ultimately house six buildings and 360,000 square feet of research space. The city will invest a total of $7 million on infrastructure around the park.

The institute will initially occupy half of the first 60,000-square-foot building. Also March 12, Hampton Mayor Charlie Wornom announced that the Army Corps of Engineers has given the city approval to extend Commander Shepard Boulevard from Magruder Boulevard to Big Bethel Road, which will improve access to the institute on Floyd Thompson Boulevard.

The institute will serve as an incubator for entrepreneurs. The first one expected to move into the building is Crewestone Technologies Inc., an audio and video production company that develops science-based content for NASA and television and film.