PUSH Buffalo has completed and opened a new job-training facility on Buffalo’s West Side, designed to prepare local residents from minority communities for clean-energy jobs.
Funded primarily by state grants, the nonprofit’s Sustainability Workforce Training Center represents the first “green” job training center in Western New York. It advances both PUSH’s goals to meet climate and energy standards, as well as state efforts to promote a “green economy” and workforce, according to a state press release announcing the opening.
It will focus on helping members of the Black, Indigenous and other “disadvantaged” or “underserved” communities to develop the skills needed to gain new jobs in green-energy professions, the group said. It will teach sustainable building practices to create quality affordable housing.
“It stands as a model for cities across the state and nation for what the future of holistic sustainability implementation can look like in frontline communities,” the group said.
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PUSH Buffalo opened its new Sustainability Workforce Training Center on Buffalo’s West Side.
Built on two formerly vacant lots at 169 Arkansas and 298 Hampshire streets, the 2,500-square-foot facility was developed by PUSH and its affiliate, the Buffalo Neighborhood Stabilization Co., in response to the state Climate Act’s mandates to move away from fossil fuels and embrace climate resiliency.
“By investing in green workforce development like PUSH Buffalo’s new training center we can ensure the next generation of New Yorkers is prepared to fill the jobs of the future in our green economy, Gov. Kathy Hochul said a statement.
Dawn Wells-Clyburn, executive director of PUSH-Buffalo called the training center “a beacon of hope for the next generation marching into the sustainable revolution that frontline communities deserve.”
“This center, built with a cutting-edge building envelope and energy-efficient approach to heating and cooling, stands as a testament to our commitment to a cleaner and resilient future,” Wells-Clyburn said.
The $2.5 million project includes flexible classrooms, office and meeting spaces, a solar array and a geothermal heating and cooling system. That enables the building to generate as much energy as it uses while also providing a “learning laboratory” for training in renewable energy skills. Trainees will learn about clean-heat, solar and other renewable energy technologies and energy-efficiency upgrades.
PUSH already has a green workforce training program through its Community Hiring Hall, which was created in 2013 to train and place workers in construction, renewable energy and energy-efficiency jobs. It also serves as an “employer of record” for recruitment, screening, hiring, management and administration for unemployed or underemployed low-income residents.
So far, more than 224 of its former trainees have been hired by companies across the region. That program will now move to the new facility, and officials expect to at least double the number of graduates each year from 50 to more than 100.
The project was funded with $1.64 million from Empire State Development Corp., including a $1.2 million Workforce Development Challenge Grant through Buffalo Billion II and a $445,000 Regional Council Capital Fund grant.
PUSH also got $137,817 from New York State Energy Research and Development Administration, and support through a joint venture with University at Buffalo.
Additionally, JP Morgan Chase & Co. this month pledged $3 million in donations to PUSH to support lowering the carbon footprint of new housing.
Change of plans
When Health Sciences Charter School originally bought a vacant commercial complex at 1291 Main St., on the other side of its downtown campus, officials hoped to use it for educational purposes in the short-term and eventually convert and enlarge it into a new gymnasium and wellness center.
Instead, it is now asking to demolish it.
The front of the building at 1291 Main St. in Buffalo, which Health Sciences Charter School owns and is asking to demolish in July 2024.
School officials say the 28,506-square-foot complex is in bad condition and can’t be occupied because of continuing deterioration. The building is also “not landmarked” or historic and is not part of a historic district. And it’s “non-conforming” to the Green Code for its zoning category, which would make it eligible to be torn down if the city Planning Board agrees on Monday.
The complex consists of a two-story white masonry building in front, plus a red-brick industrial building with skylights on a flat roof in the rear. The school – which is based at 1140 Ellicott St. – had wanted to renovate it, but “the costs of meeting state education code for student use proved to be prohibitive,” according to a letter to the city from Head of School Jaime Venning.
“The building is in poor condition and a drain on the school’s limited resources,” Venning wrote.
An aerial view of the two-building complex at 1291 Main St. in Buffalo that Health Sciences Charter School owns and is seeking to demolish in July 2024.
Health Sciences is working to obtain funding to build a gymnasium and community wellness center on the 0.6-acre property. But in the meantime, while planning and fundraising continue, it will use the vacant land after demolition to create a community garden that will be screened from Main Street, in partnership with Home Beneath Our Feet. The produce grown in the garden will be made available to residents in the Masten and Ellicott districts.
Demolition by Empire Building Diagnostics would take about two months, at a cost of $110,000.
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Five reads from Buffalo Next:
1. A year into the legal cannabis market, a lot has changed – and plenty more changes are coming.
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3. Amazon is starting to build a huge distribution facility in Niagara County. It will look a lot like this one in Rochester.
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The Buffalo Next team gives you the big picture on the region’s economic revitalization. Email tips to buffalonext@buffnews.com or reach Buffalo Next Editor David Robinson at 716-849-4435.
Email tips to buffalonext@buffnews.com.
