New Workforce Center

Mesa County is in the planning stages of creating a new workforce center in the Grand Valley. The 7 point 5 million dollar project would be funded from the new 2013 budget that was proposed yesterday.

The announcement of the new plans came at just the right time, yesterday 120 people were told they'd be out of a job at the end of the year. The county says the new building will be able to accommodate the increased number of unemployed in our community.

The current workforce center is located off 29 Road and North Avenue but the new building will move up the street and next to the community services building at 29 1/2 Road. The county says the new building will have more room to host businesses, have job fairs, and train people on the skills they need to find a job.

“It's so good we're investing in this workforce center. Certainly the role of government is to work hard to help businesses find workers and help workers find jobs. So this workforce center will be just the right investment at the right time.”

The county says the new building will help businesses link up with job seekers and the room to have them all in the same place will help. The new building will be 32-thousand square feet and be paid for by the county's capital budget-- it can only be used to pay for infrastructure projects and is funded by sales tax revenue.

Construction on the new workforce center is expected to start in the early part of 2013. The county says it will be complete the same year.