Construction on the new $26.5 million Regional Workforce and Child Development Hub in Abingdon is 99 percent complete, with staff moving in at the end of the month and an opening expected in early September, EO President and CEO Travis Staton said Thursday.
EO – short for Endless Opportunity, formerly the program arm of the United Way of Southwest Virginia – has been working on the hub since July 2023. A public opening ceremony is expected to take place in October, which Staton hopes will be attended by Governor Glenn Youngkin, who has spoken positively about the project several times.
The hub was built in a former Kmart building with a total area of 87,000 square meters in a shopping center near Exit 17 on Interstate 81.
The center will house an early childhood development center that will serve 300 children up to the age of four and will be operated by Ballad Health.
It will also offer career training with STEM labs for teacher training and a shared services alliance to strengthen early childhood care and education providers. The building will be home to Career Commons, which will provide hands-on career simulation to students throughout Southwest Virginia.
The center is designed to fill the severe gap between the region’s need for child care and what is available. Staton said that before the COVID-19 pandemic, Southwest Virginia’s gap was three times the state average, which equated to about 7,000 children. The cost of child care has also risen beyond what many families can afford.
In addition, many businesses in the region are suffering from a shortage of employees and owners have stated that there is an urgent need for further education and training of the future workforce in professional and technical fields.
When Staton had the idea for the center, he realized he had to start from scratch in terms of planning and design because no such facility existed.
On Wednesday, Innovate Fund, a Greenville, South Carolina-based community development company, announced it is investing $5.5 million in the Abingdon project under the New Market Tax Credit.
The NMTC program attracts private capital to low-income communities by giving investors a tax credit on their federal income taxes when they make equity investments in specialized financial intermediaries called community development entities. The credit is 39 percent of the original investment amount and is claimed over seven years, according to the U.S. Treasury Department.
“These funds will help us cover some of the construction costs, but will also provide us with the resources we need to operate the building and the program functions within it that we will use for decades to come,” Staton said.
He said he was working with the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development to get some of the industrial revitalization funding for the project when he learned about the New Market Tax Credit funding.
The workforce and child care center turned out to be a good fit with the Innovate Fund’s mission, and it didn’t hurt that TIF program manager Emma Wyatt lives in Abingdon and had heard about the project at church. The center will be the first NMTC project to be completed in Washington County, according to Wyatt.
Staton said they are already taking reservations for field trips to the center for students in grades 1-12 and are fielding calls from parents interested in child care. They are also in the final stages of moving in furniture for the building’s child care area.
EO has a provisional occupancy permit for the building, with final approval expected next week. Recruitment is also underway for the more than 100 jobs that will be created across all areas of the hub.
After the grand opening in October, plans are to host an open house for the community in November, Staton said.
Everyone involved with the hub is looking forward to the opening and starting work, Staton said.
“We just want everyone to have good jobs and living wages and good childcare so our economy can continue to move forward,” he said.
