(BUFFALO, NEW YORK) – The National AFL-CIO’s HIT Subsidiary - Building America - has announced New Markets Tax Credits to help finance Buffalo’s Northland Central’s Workforce Training Center, which will reuse part of a historic vacant industrial complex and serve as an anchor for the broader Northland Central Project.  Approximately 93,000 square feet of the 240,000-square-foot building will be used to train Workers for Union Construction Jobs.

Since it was formed in 2010, Building America has allocated $117.5 million of New Markets Tax Credits to 15 projects across the United States.  As a subsidiary of the National AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust (HIT), Building America works to create economic empowerment and opportunity, bringing jobs and services to severely distressed communities.

“We’re ‘investing in the future’ of America ‘and that future begins here in Buffalo,” said Ted Chandler, HIT’s Chief Operating Officer, who noted that in 2013 Building America committed $9.2 million in New Markets Tax Credits towards construction of recently-completed Roswell Park Cancer Institute’s Clinical Sciences Center. 

“The ‘first solar roof tile manufacturing started here just last month and Northland Central is the key to a skilled and trained workforce for cutting-edge efforts like that,’” said Chandler, who was joined by Western New York AFL-CIO (WNYALF) President Richard Lipsitz, Jr. at the announcement event. 

The center is expected to create an estimated 329 Union Construction Jobs, as well as another 69 new positions, while retaining 124 permanent jobs in Management, Counseling, Administration, Faculty, Building Operations, Maintenance and Security.

There is a 30% Local Hiring Requirement and up to 20 Low-Income Residents will be accepted into the Buffalo Building Trades Pre-Apprenticeship Program, HIT Officials said.

Once completed, some 300 Workers will be trained annually at the center for Entry-Level Operator Jobs in machinery, welding, transformers and other positions.

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