New training center being built for Detroiters to learn skilled trades debt-free

DETROIT (FOX 2) - The Michigan Statewide Carpenters and Millwrights Joint Apprenticeship and Training Fund has broken ground on the 147,000-square-foot training facility in the Oakman Boulevard area on Detroit's west side.

The training center will give Detroiters the opportunity to learn a skilled trade debt-free.

"An enormous frustration for a lot of us over the years, the lack of opportunities in the building trades for men and women of color, particularly for African Americans," Detroit mayor Mike Duggan said.

The new $30 million, seven-acre facility will consolidate the center's operations under one roof. Currently, operations are spread across locations in Warren, Ferndale, Livonia, and the downtown Renaissance Center.

The training space will include a 30-booth weld shop, flooring manipulation area, high bay space for carpenters and millwrights with an overhead crane, and state-of-the-art classrooms with smart board technology. In addition to training space, the building will offer meeting space for contractor symposiums, career fairs, and apprenticeship readiness programs, as well as space for community events.

"They are so committed to Detroiters pursuing careers as carpenters and millwrights they opened and built their training center here," Duggan said of the Michigan Statewide Carpenters and Millwrights Joint Apprenticeship and Training Fund.

The training center will help Detroiters get building trade jobs and get paid to learn the trade.

"One thousand, five hundred apprentices - students - are going to be paid," Duggan said. "Unlike other places where you pay tuition while you learn, this is an opportunity for you to get paid." 

Mayor Duggan believes with all the new construction taking place in the city the training facility could not come at a better time.

"And with yesterday's action by Detroit city Council we're going to have 8,000 houses and neighborhoods in Detroit that will be renovated," Duggan said, referencing Proposal N. 

Leaders at the training facility believe it can change lives.

"I believe that this is going to change people's lives in the city of Detroit as we provide the opportunities that are due. It's here because this is where we are building and it's on the streets where the people who live that need to be doing that building," said Tom Lutz, President of Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters and Millwrights.

The center is expected to be built and ready next year.