The Northland Career Center is hard at work raising funds for its transformation into the Northland Workforce Development Center.
Riverside aldermen heard an update on the capital campaign earlier this month when Jeff Green, director of the Northland Career Center, spoke to the board. Mayor Kathy Rose said she hopes the presentation kickstarts a larger discussion on a possible municipal donation to the campaign.
The Northland Career Center officially kicked off its capital campaign in October 2022 when Gov. Mike Parson charged the Northland leaders in the room at a workforce education event to “get to work” and raise the funds to match the $30 million award provided by the legislature and signed by the governor’s office.
The existing Northland Career Center is a public, nonprofit career and technical education school serving approximately 17,000 students in Clay and Platte counties. While located in Platte City, students from the North Kansas City, Liberty, Kearney and other Northland districts send students to the career center.
In partnership with the Platte County School District, NCC initiated the campaign to support the construction of Northland Workforce Development Center (NWDC) on a 19-acre site in a centralized location near the Clay-Platte county line, just north of 152 Highway and Platte Purchase Road.
The new center would serve more than 900 high school students
during the day (doubling NCC’s current capacity) and through partnerships with Metropolitan Community College and other post-secondary institutions allow 300 adults to enroll in afternoon and evening courses for college credit and/or advanced certificates.
“We’re trying to build a workforce for the entire Northland – and as far as that reach can go,” Green said.
Currently, the career center is at capacity at nearly 500 students and has to turn students away, with a waiting list of more than 100. The center physically has no more space for more equipment or students. The new center would double that capacity.
The current cost estimate for the Northland Workforce Development Center is $74 million, made up of state and federal funding, as well as corporate funding and donations from individuals and organizations. Currently, the campaign has raised about $38 million.
“We are making progress,” Green said. “Not as fast as we’d like, but we are making progress.”
Riverside Mayor Kathy Rose pointed out the campaign needs to raise matching funds to the $30 million state grant by the end of December. Rose said the new career center has become a passion project for her, and she and Brian Noller, NCC’s campaign chair, have made several municipal presentations with more planned.
Rose told aldermen the city partners with numerous community organizations including the chamber and she hopes the aldermen could consider a one-time partnership donation to the program.
“This project speaks to the future and to our community,” Rose said. “For anybody in our community that thinks this is a good fit for them, we’re providing them with a step up.”