Construction Begins on Commonwealth Center for Advanced Manufacturing

Construction began in November of 2011 on the Commonwealth Center for Advanced Manufacturing in Disputanta, Va. The 60,000-sf collaborative research facility represents a partnership of the University of Virginia, Virginia Tech, and Virginia State University. Supporting advanced research in surface engineering and manufacturing systems, the 50,000-sf facility will house computational and large-scale production labs as well as production space for heavy equipment and surface coating processes. Founding industry partners include Canon Virginia, Chromalloy, Newport News Shipbuilding, Rolls-Royce, Sandvik Coromant, and Siemens. The general contractor for the project is W.M. Jordan Company of Newport News. The value of the construction contract is $12.9 million. Completion is expected in August of 2012.