The line worker building, located on the south campus of Colorado Mesa University, will soon be getting an all-new facility.
In order to build a line worker building with all of the amenities required for the program, the school will need a total of $3.2 million. CMU plans to pay for this in three different phases.
The project is separated into three phases to make it easier to handle. The first two are grouped together since it gets the building made and usable, just not finished. This part is estimated to cost about 1.67 million dollars. The third and final phase is an estimated 1.54 million dollars to complete and will finish the interior of the building.
CMU is responsible to pay for $289,125 towards the building. To accomplish this, CMU has received a grant from the Mesa County Federal Mineral Lease District that will kick in on July 1.
Dana Nunn, director of media relations said, “The short version would be that we got a grant from the Federal Mineral Lease District. Those are the dollars that we are using, to show that we have skin in the game, which can help to increase chances with getting state funding.”
According to Nunn, CMU has received this grant and is showing that it can pay for part of the building; however, there are still about $2.9 million left unaccounted for. The rest will be supplied by the state.
CMU has been applying for state funding in order to get the new facility built. This would account for $2.9 million of the project and essentially makes or breaks the project.
The state has already approved to pay their share of the first two phases, and to do this the Capital Development Committee has promised to disburse $1.45 million in certificates of participation.
COPs are provided statewide to various cities to work on fixing/building transportation for the citizens of Colorado. Two billion dollars are distributed across the state, while 120 million of that two billion goes to capital production and higher education construction projects. The money will first go to control maintenance, fixing sites and building in need of repair, and anything left over will go to those that apply and receive the rest of the COP revenue.
“There was a little bit of that 120 million left over. Lucky for us, our project got prioritized fairly high and we got $1.45 million from those COP proceeds from the CDC last October,” said Lara Glatt, vice president of Finance & Administrative Service.
There is less than $1.5 million needed from the state to complete the project and finish phase three. In order to apply for this final $1.47 million from state funding, there must be some sort of return on the money.
CMU has pledged the new building as collateral for the loan. This is able to be accomplished because the building, being a total of $3.2 million, would cover the cost of the $1.47 million that will be borrowed, making the appeal for the project to be funded.
“So we told the state that we are getting about $2.9 million in total from the COPs out of the total two billion. In turn, we will pledge this building, which will be $3.2 million, as collateral to cover the COPs, making us Even Steven,” said Glatt.
This pledge has been accepted by the board and is now going to be processed by legislation, which is in session, so CMU will find out if the money for phase three will be accepted once the state budget, or the long bill, is passed.
Together all of these funding sources will make the build possible, and if everything goes as planned, the money will start coming in on July 1 and construction will begin shortly after, giving the line-workers a new place to study and train.
