A $1.2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Agency will help renovate and equip the Rock Island Railroad Depot in North Little Rock for use as a technology career training center for Shorter College.
Officials announced the grant Tuesday during a news conference at the depot at 1201 E. 4th St. The historic one-story brick building, built in 1913, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.
The private, two-year liberal arts college said it will purchase the building from its owner, the city of North Little Rock. The EDA grant will fund the building renovation, set to begin in the spring. When complete, officials said the building will house meeting space, classrooms, office space, and a computer technology equipment center.
“This is career education and executive training, so that people who are not in college but who want to get these skills can come here and get these 21st century skills,” Shorter College President O. Jerome Green told Arkansas Business. “And businesses who want their employees to have their skills upgraded can come here and can send their employees here.”
Green said the center will allow people a place to gain new technology career credentials, including those offered by IBM and Apple Inc. in such disciplines as cyber security, blockchain and computer programming. Local employers will also be able to send employees to the center for training.
Green also wants to offer financial services to entrepreneurs.
“There is space that is designated for a financial institution,” he said. “So we hope to develop a credit union and a lending institution that can make capital available to budding entrepreneurs.”
Green expects to put out bids for construction work in January with completion sometime in the summer. The total project is expected to cost $1.8 million.
Jorge Ayala, EDA regional director, said workforce development is an important piece of the agency’s work in local communities, and that the tech center is a good example of those efforts.
“Having opportunities to educate the next workforce for those companies is key, so I applaud Shorter College in taking that mantle,” he said.
Ayala also said revitalizing the depot will encourage other development in the area. Green said he would like to connect the depot to the main Shorter campus, just a few blocks to the northwest.
Founded in 1886 by the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Shorter College is one of the country’s 107 Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and is the only private, two-year HBCU in the country.
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