A new academic building at Virginia Tech has reached a critical construction milestone.
The university, alongside contractor Skanska, topped out Mitchell Hall, which will become the college’s largest school of engineering building on campus, the contractor announced on Tuesday. The total construction cost for the project is $292 million, Meghan Marsh, Virginia Tech’s facilities communications director, told Construction Dive via email.
Skanska signed an initial contract to work on the hall in May 2024 for $53 million, and construction began that spring. The firm inked a supplemental contract for $240 million on the project in June 2025.
The five-story, 285,500-square-foot facility replaces the former Randolph Hall, which the university demolished in 2024, according to local NBC affiliate 10 News. The new Mitchell Hall adds over 70% more gross square feet on the same site, per Skanska.
The hall is also built around the Virginia Tech Stability Wind Tunnel, one of the largest university-owned wind tunnels in the country, according to the news release. The school uses it for academic research projects and industrial application testing.
Once complete, Mitchell Hall will contain, according to the university’s project page:
- Approximately 54,000 assignable square feet of classrooms and instructional laboratories.
- Approximately 56,000 assignable square feet of research laboratories.
- Approximately 55,000 assignable square feet of shared faculty, staff and student office spaces.
The project team used 18,321 cubic yards of concrete and 2,600 tons of reinforcing steel, per Skanska. The new hall is expected to be complete in winter 2028.
Skanska has worked on Virginia Tech’s campuses before. Over the past six years the contractor delivered an undergraduate science laboratory building in Blacksburg, Virginia and completed the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute Addition in Roanoke, Virginia.
The builder’s other higher education clients include the University of Virginia, where it topped out a $350 million biotech facility in Charlottesville in October. Then, in March, Skanska landed a contract to build a $165 million biology building at Texas A&M University in College Station.
