By the numbers
$5.8 Million: The estimated amount of money needed to convert Clark State's Brinkman Center into a workforce development center.
$5 Million: The amount of money Clark State has requested through the Dayton Regional Priority Development and Advocacy Process for the workforce development center.
$862,500: The estimated amount of money Clark State would spend for the remaining funding needed for the project.
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Clark State Community College is seeking a $5 million grant to transform its downtown Brinkman Education Center into a hub for workforce development in Springfield.
The college requested the money last month as part of the Dayton Regional Priority Development & Advocacy Process for federal funding requests, according to public documents.
The grant would allow the college to create a one-stop shop for workforce development for businesses and industry in the region, Clark State President Dr. Jo Alice Blondin said, and would draw local businesses to locate downtown.
“It’s a real opportunity for us to bring a lot of these training opportunities together under one roof,” Blondin said.
Renovations at the Brinkman Center, 100 S. Limestone St., would cost more than $5.8 million. Clark State would cover about $862,000 of the price tag. The project includes updates to the second and third floors, including a networking lab, computers and furnishings, heating and air conditioning and connectivity to the fiber-optic ring.
The renovated facility would “serve local and regional employers’ needs by providing training and meeting venues in a state-of-the-art facility, while also contributing to the revitalization efforts of downtown,” according to the request. The project wouldn’t create jobs, but would help employers fill existing and future job vacancies.
The college currently houses several credit and non-credit training programs at the Brinkman Center, as well as its Business and Applied Technologies credit programs. The business programs will move to the first floor of the Library Resource Center on the Leffel Lane campus, which will be renovated with a $471,000 grant received in August.
“We thought this would be a good opportunity to expand that operation (at the Brinkman Center) to include as many businesses in the region in very concentrated and shared workforce development efforts in the Brinkman Center,” Blondin said.
The building needs updated, particularly on the second and third floors, Blondin said. The first floor was recently improved, she said, and the fourth floor was reconfigured earlier.
“It’s workable right now as faculty offices, but in terms of training, it is not ideal,” Blondin said.
This year, the college saw about 4,000 people from the area use the center through rentals and training seminars for companies like Konecranes and Assurant, according to the request. The outdated building configuration and technology, however, makes it tough to attract more businesses to the facility.
At the updated workforce development center, businesses would rent space to create specialized training programs for their employees. The college will also partner with the Small Business Administration to work with individuals looking to start their own businesses.
Several businesses wrote letters of recommendation for the project, including Assurant, CodeBlue and Konecranes, as part of the PDAC request.
Assurant has used the Brinkman Center for training in the past, but a lack of available resources restricts the training the center can offer, says Raymond Rafferty, vice president of Assurant’s Springfield Operations Center in the grant request.
“Technology updates, including video-conferencing capability, will allow our company to broadcast training services to one of our 94 locations worldwide,” Rafferty says.
The project is one of many workforce development initiatives moving forward, which is critical to job growth and job retention, said Horton Hobbs, vice president of economic development for the Greater Springfield Chamber of Commerce.
“Anything that’s focused like that is going to be a competitive advantage to our community,” he said.
The center will also strengthen the argument to bring prospective employers to Springfield, Hobbs said, showing business leaders that the community is focused on developing employees for the future.
Downtown Springfield is a great location for that type of investment, he said.
“It’s very accessible and it’s centralized for both the employers and the people who go through the center,” Hobbs said.
The project will be a boon to the downtown, leading to more services provided in the area, said Bill Harless, executive director of the Center City Association.
“Anything that brings more people to downtown is going to be a positive for us,” Harless said. “It has long-term ramifications for Springfield and Clark County.”
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