Community fetes one-stop career center
Community fetes one-stop career center
Facility will house career services, to be completed February 2007
MOSES LAKE — Early next year, job seekers will find all their assistance in one spot.
Supporters turned out at the site of a new one-stop career center for a groundbreaking ceremony Thursday afternoon.
The center will house the SkillSource Learning Center and WorkSource Career Center, the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation and Opportunities Industrialization, among others.
"The one-stop concept brings the service to the community under one roof," explained Moses Lake SkillSource manager Yolanda Rios. "We have different partners that offer and provide different services, so when a customer comes in looking for something … we will be able to point them in the right direction."
Rios thinks it's important to have a menu of partners offering a variety of services.
"We all have our own funding sources, guidelines and compliances, but the main thing is to make it as easy as possible for our customers," she said, noting it has been about a three-year process to get the facility to the groundbreaking point. SkillSource had been thinking about building its own building for a long time, Rios noted, but when the opportunity arose to offer a building large enough for the one-stop facility, "That was the ideal."
Wenatchee architectural firm MJ Neal Associates designed the $3.87 million one-story community facility, which will sit on 3.1 acres at 309 E. Fifth Ave., will be 21,000 square feet and will feature a 60-foot long atrium. Waynco Construction of Spokane is the general contractor. Center completion is scheduled for February 2007.
"From where you stand right now, if you were to go to Vocational Rehabilitation, you'd go east; if you were going to WorkSource, you'd go south; if you were going to Opportunities Industrialization, you'd go west; if you were going to SkillSource you'd go north," Dave Petersen, executive director of SkillSource for north central Washington, told the gathered audience as they stood on the site. "But in about eight months, you'd go to one place. All four of those agencies will be housed under one roof."
Other partners will have outreach locations within the facility, including Job Corps, Goodwill Industries and Big Bend Community College, Petersen said.
"There's no more important, key item for economic development in any of our communities than workforce training and education," Grant County Economic Development Council Executive Director and North Central Workforce Development Council board member Terry Brewer said in his speech. "It's ever so important to be able to train people and re-train people for the new occupational skills that employees require, and there's no better way to do that than a one-stop center like we're about to see here."
"Workforce development, training, an educated work force, a vibrant economy — all of those things come together to move our state forward," Karen Lee, commissioner of the state's employment security department, said in her speech. "Being able to come together in one place, to find your future, find training, have a new life, get a career and become a member of our economy is just wonderful."
After the ceremony, Lee said people hoping to improve their lives have to drive all over town.
"So it was really inefficient for them, and then it was inefficient for other partners," she said. "The whole one-stop concept is about bringing people together, so that we can provide service right there."
Sandi Houghton, community programs director for United States Department of Agriculture Rural Development, explained that her program is providing the long-term financing for the facility, while North Central Washington Bank is providing the interim financing.
The building is part of President George W. Bush's initiative to invest in rural communities Houghton added.
"It is basically an essential community facility, and we feel it will be a great asset to this community," she said.
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