Andrea Virgin
President at Boca Raton Center for Arts & Innovation
Andrea Virgin is a rare breed: A professional ballerina turned land development engineer. After nearly 20 years of working in both commercial real estate and the performing arts, she decided to combine both her passions with the love of her community to spearhead the proposed Center for Arts & Innovation in order to fill the cultural gap in Boca Raton that she’s known first-hand has existed for decades.
Andrea was raised in Boca Raton. In addition to her academic education, Andrea trained at Boca Ballet Theatre and Harid Conservatory to become a professional ballerina, ultimately dancing with both Houston Ballet II and Ballet Florida. Amidst her full schedule, Andrea also made a point of enrolling full-time as a college student 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, right here 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, the combination of her past experience, relationships with arts and culture organizations, and connections in the world of commercial real estate have taken this vision to a point where more than $10 million in both seed money and in-kind services have been donated, major stakeholders have gathered together, some of the world’s best consultants have been engaged, a unanimous vote of support for a long-term ground lease in Mizner Park has been given by the City Council and promising discussions for major philanthropic support have begun to materialize. Andrea currently sits as President of the Board for the 501(c)(3) non-profit organization behind the vision and looks forward to bringing southern Palm Beach County the world-class performance and exhibition venues that mirror our world-class region.