Groundbreaking day is here.
Original article by Michael Zogg, Today’s News-Herald
A group of about 20 people who were involved with putting together Lake Havasu City’s entry into the America’s Best Community competition a little more than three years ago gathered at 2121 McCulloch Boulevard Wednesday to celebrate a milestone for Vision 2020.
The Partnership for Economic Development is in the final planning stages of the co-working center, which will be called Nomadic, and is preparing to start building the facility early next year.
A co-working center was identified as one of three top priority projects during the Vision 2020 movement which culminated in Lake Havasu City finishing as the runner up in America’s Best Community competition in 2017. The co-working project was given $400,000 of the $2 million prize from ABC, and Nomadic will be the first of the three projects to get off the ground. Plans are still underway for both the downtown catalyst project and the environmental learning center.
“Today we are celebrating the first of the ground up developments of the plan, but we have done so much work inside the plan already that is just not a building,” Mayor Cal Sheehy said to those gathered Wednesday. “We have already done a lot of work on workforce development, job training, and diversifying what our community will look like already. Then this will be a legacy that will allow our entrepreneurs to continue to grow and make the Lake Havasu City of tomorrow even better than it is today.”
PED Board Chairman Michael Patterson said many economic development efforts focus on attracting companies and people to town, but Nomadic is an investment in the people and ingenuity already in Havasu.
“This community was really started by entrepreneurs,” he said. “I’m excited that we are able to continue to foster that kind of thing in our community. That is really what this is about.”
PED CEO James Gray pointed out that Nomadic, situated in the heart of Main Street, is also an investment in the downtown area which was another major priority of Vision 2020.
“There are going to be 25 to 29 startup companies and distance workers working right in here daily, going in and out,” Gray said. “I think that is going to have a big impact on how people see the vibrancy.”
Gray said the PED is currently finishing up site preparation work, which includes abandoning old easements and creating new ones, along with relocating the transformer on the property.
Once the prep work is completed and the city finishes signing off on the plans, construction of the 9,100 square foot facility is expected to take another 12 months. Gray said the PED is hoping to start construction in January 2021, with a goal of opening Nomadic for business in early 2022.
The construction contract is still out for bidding, but Gray said it is expected to cost $1,950,000, which the PED will pay for using its own funds, and the project’s portion of prize money from the ABC competition.
