SOUTH BOSTON, Va. – A new building is being erected in downtown South Boston for the first time in 40 years.
Microsoft and Mid-Atlantic Broadband Communities Corp. (MBC) announced a partnership Monday to build the SOVA Innovation Hub.
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The new SOVA Innovation Hub, which will be located in downtown South Boston at the intersection of Wilborn Avenue and Johnston Street, is designed to help meet its growing need for office space.
Microsoft, through its TechSpark initiative, will use the space to encourage innovation and spur economic opportunities in the region. It will also bring together local nonprofit organizations from throughout the region to offer impactful programming for digital skills education and workforce training.
The facility is made possible by MBC, which will invest more than $5 million to build the hub.
The 15,000 square-foot, two-story SOVA Innovation Hub will be located on the site of a former tobacco warehouse built in the 1900s and destroyed by a fire in 2002.
It will provide a mixture of offices, co-working spaces, collaborative work areas, event and training spaces and technology showcase areas and will feature high-capacity wireless broadband access.
Microsoft will use the SOVA Innovation Hub as a base for its TechSpark Virginia efforts. In addition to offering access to technology, it will use the center as a convening space to leverage regional partnerships to offer programming, workshops and events that encourage entrepreneurs and expand digital skills and career pathways in the area. Southern Virginia is one of the six TechSpark regions across the United States chosen for the program to foster job creation and economic opportunity by focusing on computer science education and digital skills, career pathways, digital transformation, support of nonprofits and rural access to broadband.
“The town of South Boston is proud to serve as the location for the regional SOVA Innovation Hub,” said Ed Owens, mayor of the town of South Boston and a member of the Virginia Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission. “We welcome MBC and Microsoft and are inspired by the energy and excitement they will bring to our downtown area.”