By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
On Wednesday, Gov. Laura Kelly's office announced the allocation of nearly $28 million in Capital Projects Fund Accelerator awards that will result in the creation of 458 new childcare slots in seven communities in the state. Great Bend Economic Development (GBED) and Advancing Barton County Childcare (ABCC) will receive more than $4.38 million in funding to build the IGNITE Innovation Center. Eco Devo Director Sara Arnberger said the impacts will be far-reaching.
"This really is a dream center," she said. "It's everything I've wanted and more for this community. But it's a really great partnership, ultimately, with a whole bunch of different organizations and businesses throughout Barton County to enhance what everybody is offering."
The grant required the construction of a new building though Eco Devo cannot yet release the planned location. The Great Bend center will open 28 child care slots, including two rooms solely dedicated to after-hours and overnight child care. Partnerships will include KansasWorks, Small Business Development Center, and several other local entities.
"It will incorporate a co-working space, a commercial kitchen incubator space, a makerspace, a broadcasting studio makerspace, plenty of high-technology office spaces for learning and training and all kind of things," Arnberger said. "It will incorporate some clinic space for the hospital to partner with. Barton Community College is going to be an awesome partner in offering some things here."
The grant will cover more than $4.38 million in costs, but Arnberger said the total project will approach $7 million.
"But this project, we have the opportunity to move very quickly because of the grant we received," she said. "We are moving forward with the project and securing the other funds along the way. We're very optimistic about the center we've created and the asks we have out."
Arnberger said it is difficult to estimate how many new jobs the center may create but because operation will be on a partnership basis, only one or two new hires would be needed immediately.
"Then we'll contract out some work to help support the cleaning of the facility, the maintenance, etc.," she said. "As the years go by, we're going to find out really quickly, I think, what else we need to support that. The child care pieces alone will each have at least four employees."
GBED will announce the location of the facility at a later date. GBED hopes to break ground on the new center by the end of 2024 with completion of the build sometime in 2025.