Ground broke for the Huntington County Community Learning Center Wednesday as the first symbolic step to the start of construction on the project years in the making.
Learning center project consultant Ed Vessels addressed the crowd that included dozens of investors, Huntington County Community School Corporation staff and board members, government officials as well as students having classes at the current Vocational-Technical Center.
"I almost need to be pinched because I never thought this day would come," Vessels remarked. "We have been working on this for more than three years, so to have it come to fruition and have such an awesome turnout (to the groundbreaking), we couldn't ask for anything more."
"Today's project couldn't have been possible without an immense amount of collaboration," Vessels remarked, referencing the crowd, many of whom had taken part in investing into the project or were involved in some way with having the center developed.
Huntington Mayor Brooks Fetters also addressed the crowd, focusing on the benefit the center will have to the city's workforce.
"I'm proud to be the mayor of the City of Huntington and proud that I am able to represent the contributions of the citizens of this city to this great venture, which ensures that we will have meaningful jobs and the trained, skilled workforce in the years and decades to come that can fill those jobs and can help make Huntington a best in class city," Fetters said.
Huntington County Commissioner President Tom Wall spoke as well, remarking that when he came into the position as commissioner the task at hand was to fill the more than 2 million square feet of empty industrial space. He said the issues have changed and now the county needs to look into programs that can train individuals in the in-demand jobs like those to be offered at the completed learning center.
"We have never had the problem that we don't have the people to fill the jobs," Wall remarked. "This is something new for us to deal with. That's why we are teaming up to get this accomplished."
A release from Northeast Indiana Works stated that the roughly 7,500 square-foot expansion had an overall project cost of about $1.45 million. In a meeting with the HCCSC Board of School Trustees in April, Vessels said that the development team had at that point already surpassed the initial $1.3 million goal in pledges.
The Northeast Indiana Works release said upon completion the expanded facility will have close to 30,000-square feet of space and will boast a number of different training facilities including automotive and precision machining, certified nursing assistant and emergency medical technician courses. The new facility will also feature offices with two of the educational partners involved alongside HCCSC in the course offerings, including Ivy Tech Community College Northeast and WorkOne Northeast.