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Virginia BioTechnology Research Park

1992 establishments in VirginiaBuildings and structures in Richmond, VirginiaScience parks in the United States

The VA Bio+Tech Park is a 34 acres (14 ha) commercial life sciences hub in downtown Richmond, Virginia adjacent to the VCU Medical Center at Virginia Commonwealth University. The park was incorporated in 1992 and opened in 1995. It houses nearly 70 public and private life sciences companies, research institutes affiliated with VCU, and prominent state and national medical laboratories. Residents include the national headquarters for the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), the Virginia Department of Forensic Science, the Virginia Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, and True Health Diagnostics. The park's largest tenant is Richmond-based Altria Group, Inc., which opened the metal-clad, 450,000-square-foot, $350 million Center for Research & Technology on the site in 2007. The heavily secured complex employs 600 scientists, engineers and support staff. From 1995 to 2011, the park generated approximately $108 million in tax revenue for the Commonwealth, according to the Virginia Economic Development Partnership. The added economic impact attributable to the park since founding is $3.8 billion. The park's business incubation program has graduated more than 40 client companies including three publicly traded firms, and those client companies and graduates have attracted more than $400 million in equity, grant, and strategic capital. Companies and organizations in the Bio+Tech Park are housed in nine buildings that make up roughly 1.5 million square feet of space and employ more than 2,000 people. The VA Bio+Tech Park's Executive Director & President/CEO is Chandra Briggman. Unlike states such as North Carolina and Maryland that fund their research parks, the Virginia site does not receive direct money from the Commonwealth, City of Richmond, or VCU. The Park is funded mostly by parking and leasing fees.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Virginia BioTechnology Research Park (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors).

Virginia BioTechnology Research Park
East Leigh Street, Richmond

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N 37.5443 ° E -77.4312 °
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East Leigh Street 800
23219 Richmond
Virginia, United States
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Centennial Dome
Centennial Dome

The Centennial Dome, also known as the Virginia Centennial Center, was designed by Walter Dorwin Teague to serve as a focus for Virginia's efforts to publicize Virginia's Civil War history. It is one of the most modern structures ever built in Richmond. Built for the 1961 Civil War Centennial, it served as the Jonah L. Larrick Student Center on the Medical College of Virginia campus of Virginia Commonwealth University until 2007. The Centennial Center was part of a major national effort to commemorate the Civil War. Thematic issues surrounding the construction of the center including using the Civil War as a vehicle for rural land preservation, promoting tourism and healing the wounds of the Civil War across the U.S. It served as a visitor center for attractions in Richmond including the Richmond National Battlefield Park of the National Park Service and the Museum of the Confederacy. The hiring of Teague Associates for the centennial was a bold move for Richmond, which aimed to present itself as modern at the same time as it commemorated the Civil War. The construction began only a few years after the construction of the landmark modernist Reynolds Aluminum headquarters, listed on the National Register and recently renovated by Philip Morris. The Centennial effort was a time when Richmond attempted to be in the big league of design—the official hotel of the Civil War Centennial, the Hotel Richmond, hired the vanguard identity and branding firm Lippincott & Margulies to design their restaurant. The decision to hire Teague was encouraged by Virginia Museum of Fine Arts director Leslie Cheek, a proponent of modern design. Cheek, in his biography by Parke Rouse, felt that the structure was "useful, functional and quite handsome." However, the design caused controversy; one councilman called it a "grapefruit turned upside down over a doughnut." It was located directly north in axis with Richmond's New City Hall. The building was closed in December 2007 and was torn down on 2 May 2008. It was replaced by a new university dining and recreation facility. Although the Centennial Dome is now gone, most of the exhibitions it housed have been located since 1970 in the Hall of Valor Museum at the New Market Battlefield State Historical Park in New Market, Virginia. The Park is the only facility owned by the Commonwealth of Virginia that interprets the military story of the war in the state.