Our speaker on Sept. 2 was Andrea Virgin, President of Virgin Design. She established the company with the vision of creating a planning and engineering services company, centered on the client experience.
Andrea was raised in Boca Raton. In addition to her early education, Andrea trained at Boca Ballet Theatre and Harid Conservatory to become a professional ballerina, ultimately dancing with both Houston Ballet and Ballet Florida. Andrea then decided to enroll full-time at FAU for her second career as a civil engineer. Upon graduation from FAU and Cornell University, she swapped her pointe shoes for a hard hat and began working for large design companies, using her creative side to design projects that would change the landscape of cities in the south Florida area.
In January 2018, Andrea started her own firm, Virgin Design, in Boca Raton. Simultaneously, Andrea joined the Board of Directors at Boca Ballet Theatre, where the concept of envisioning and ultimately developing a performing arts center in Boca Raton was born.
Since then, Andrea has raised $1 million in both seed money and in-kind services for the Performing Arts & Innovation Center. She has gathered some of the world’s best consultants for this project and recently received a unanimous vote of support by the City of Boca Raton. Andrea currently sits as President of the non-profit organization behind the vision and looks forward to bringing Boca Raton the world-class performance and exhibition venues that mirror our world-class City.
Andrea pointed out that Boca excels in many areas but lacks a solid performing arts center as shown in this diagram:
To provide first class arts & cultural infrastructure, Andrea has created the following master plan:
What’s striking about this design is the flexibility that is built into the facility. The main auditorium can be configured in assembly/lecture mode with raised seating or collapsed to have a dinner with round table seating. The walls can be moved to accommodate different sized groups. This enables more groups to be able to use the facility since the facility can adjust to meet their requirements. 
Here is a rendering of the entrance from the street level with the Canopy clearly shown:
The total project cost is estimated at $126 million:
Finally, the current plan calls for the center to be open in 2025. Even if it is delayed by a year or two due to the coronavirus, this would be a wonderful addition to the future of Boca Raton: