Hunt Midwest has announced it will contribute up to $2 million to the Platte County R-3 School District to support the construction of Northland Career Center’s (NCC) new state-of-the-art $60 million Northland Workforce Development Center.
The pledge is the first private contribution to the new center since the State of Missouri appropriated $30 million in its FY 2023 budget to support the school district’s plans to build the new career center building and grow the Northland workforce in Clay and Platte counties.
El distrito escolar inició una campaña de recaudación de fondos de capital en octubre y Hunt Midwest finalizó su asociación antes de fin de año.
“We are truly honored to receive a sizable contribution from Hunt Midwest toward our new Northland Workforce Development Center,” said Dr. Jay Harris, superintendent of Schools for the Platte County R-3 School District. “Providing opportunities for students to be well prepared for their future is a strong commitment of all Northland school districts. We do this best through community partnerships and collective investments. Thank you to Hunt Midwest for believing in our vision to enhance opportunities for students and meet the workforce demands of our region. This donation is a great first step in building a brighter future for tomorrow across the Northland.”
El nuevo Centro de Desarrollo de la Fuerza Laboral de Northland ayudará a abordar la considerable escasez de trabajadores calificados para una letanía de puestos comerciales y calificados en toda la región. Reemplazará al actual Northland Career Center, que atrae a casi 500 estudiantes de 16 escuelas secundarias en los condados de Clay y Platte y ofrece una docena de programas diseñados para brindar a los estudiantes capacitación en el mundo real en oficios especializados como construcción, calefacción y refrigeración, robótica, soldadura. , ciencias de la salud y artes culinarias.
The current Northland Career Center, originally built in 1979, has outgrown its Platte City campus and has turned away hundreds of qualified students over the past three years – now with more children on its programs’ waiting lists than the total number of students currently enrolled. The new facility will be centrally located to both Clay and Platte counties near 152 Highway and will be more than double the size of the current campus. It also will be equipped with more modern facilities where it can better connect with nearby industries to more closely simulate the types of work environments students will enter when they graduate from the programs.
Hunt Midwest has been a close industry partner of the various Northland school districts for decades and immediately recognized the strategic importance of expanding the Northland’s technical education programs.
In May, Hunt Midwest announced plans to develop KCI29 Logistics Park, a 3,300-acre megasite that will create up to 20 million square feet of industrial space with direct access to the KCI Air Cargo Hub and Interstates 29 and 435. The project has the potential to attract more than 9,000 jobs and almost $1.5 billion in capital investment, underscoring the Northland’s need to invest in further developing its skilled workforce as more industry moves to the area.
Los líderes de Hunt Midwest se acercaron al distrito escolar para contribuir al Centro de Desarrollo de la Fuerza Laboral de Northland como parte de su inversión general en el Parque Logístico KCI29. Bajo la asociación, Hunt Midwest se comprometió a contribuir con 10 centavos por pie cuadrado de espacio de construcción en el Parque Logístico KCI29 al nuevo Centro de Desarrollo de la Fuerza Laboral de Northland a medida que se abre cada instalación industrial, hasta $2 millones en total a medida que se completan los edificios.
“In the Northland, everyone has always gone out of their way to make sure the school districts are supported, and we wanted to continue that legacy,” said Aaron Schmidt, Hunt Midwest Vice President of Development and Construction. “We already believed in the work of the Northland Career Center, and when we saw they received the $30 million in funding from the state for the new center, we talked with district leaders right away to figure out what it would take to leverage those dollars to make the new center a reality.”
Hunt Midwest also is partnering with the district to offer more internships to current and future Northland heating and air conditioning students at SubTropolis, the world’s largest underground business complex, where almost 500 HVAC units need constant maintenance. School district officials hope the new Northland Workforce Development Center will attract even more of those industry partnerships in the coming years.
“This very tight labor market has made it difficult for every firm to find new employees with the right skillsets, especially qualified HVAC technicians,” said Mike Bell, Hunt Midwest Senior Vice President of Commercial Real Estate Development. “We need more skilled technicians to maintain over 500 HVAC units in SubTropolis, so we realized that in addition to our financial contribution to Platte County R-3 and the NCC, we could offer these students an opportunity to apply what they’ve learned in the classroom in real-world conditions. It’s a win-win that ultimately benefits the entire labor market when these talented students graduate.”
Una campaña de capital para recaudar los fondos equivalentes restantes necesarios para construir el nuevo Centro de Desarrollo de la Fuerza Laboral de Northland continuará a lo largo de 2023. Los diseños preliminares para el nuevo campus están en marcha y se planea que la construcción esté completa para fines de 2026.
Para obtener más información sobre la campaña capital de NCC y el nuevo Centro de Desarrollo de la Fuerza Laboral de Northland, visite bit.ly/3YorIJ7.