Families, students, seniors, and more are one step closer to experiencing an interactive, expansive Northern Virginia Science Center after county and project leaders gathered at the Sterling site to celebrate the building’s groundbreaking Monday morning.
The center has been a years-long endeavor and took collaboration, investment and support from both public and private entities. Northern Virginia Science Center Foundation CEO Nene Spivy praised the ongoing support from the Board of Supervisors and private investors.
“This project proves that anything is possible when community comes together to meet a critical need,” Spivy said. “Borrowing another perfect tagline from our friend, Buddy Rizer, in Loudoun Economic Development – this is what Loudoun Possible looks like. This is what NOVA Possible looks like, and this is quite literally what Virginia Possible looks like.”
The 70,000-square-foot center is designed to be a world-class, interactive science museum dedicated to inspiring a love for science, technology and mathematics and serve as a hub for discovery, innovation and community engagement. The building will have five expansive galleries allowing visitors to take an expansive journey across the solar system and beyond; a gathering place for families with young learners to explore, experiment and create; a rain wall; a habitat theater, a room for blending a person’s understanding of life science with the celebration of what it means to be human; an innovation hub and studios; a living lab, a nature terrace and more.
“It’s about the moments,” Science Museum of Virginia Chief Wonder Officer Rich Conti said. “That’s what places like this create. They create special moments. It’s the dad who improves their kid’s wheelchair in the makerspace, right? It’s the couple that get engaged and later get married at the Science Center. It’s the teen volunteer who goes off to Cambridge and studies string theory with Stephen Hawking. The senior citizens who expand their friends group by participating in senior programs. The veteran with PTSD who thanks you because you’ve created evenings where he can feel normal with this family. Those are the kind of moments that are going to happen here in just a couple of years thanks to all of your generosity.”
Del. David Reid (D-28) praised the state’s $70 million contribution to the building’s construction.
“This investment in our community will directly serve over 300,000 children and their families across Northern Virginia and the broader DC region, inspiring those children to become the next scientists, engineers, rocket scientist and doctors, whose imaginations will heal disease and face global challenges and propel humanity forward to the next great generation. Here, young minds will see vast possibilities and opportunities and not limits,” Reid said.
The project is also supported through a $19 million contribution by Loudoun County to be used on exhibits, with many of the other features sponsored by private companies and individuals.
County Chair Phyllis Randall (D-At Large) said the Board of Supervisors has been a supporter of the project for years praising Del. Geary Higgins (R-30) and Ron Meyer for their vote supporting the center when they were both supervisors.
Randall also touted the economic benefits the center will bring to the county.
“This is not just a regional or state science center,” she said. “This is a multi-state science center. People will come from Maryland, from Virginia, from Pennsylvania, from West Virginia. They’re going to come from all over, and do you know what they are also going to do? They are going to leave their money right here in Loudoun County.”
Read the full article in LoudounNow.
