The federal government will provide a $332,485 grant to create a Trades Training House facility at the Kelowna campus of Okanagan College.
The funding was unveiled Wednesday morning by Kelowna-Lake Country MP Stephen Fuhr, who said the money is from a strategic investment fund commitment to spend $2 billion over the next three years for modernizing and building new education infrastructure projects.
Fuhr said some $25 million has been invested on Okanagan College and UBC Okanagan facilities since April 2016, including a $2.6 million upgrade of the trades training facility at the OC campus in Vernon.
The Trades Training House is an $876,000 project that will see a 2,700 square-foot build on the Kelowna campus to offer hands-on,practical training opportunities for sheet metal, carpentry, electrician and plumbing students.
The interior structure will continuously change, reflecting the cycles of training in an academic year along with serving as a research tool for new building technologies and techniques developed in partnership with the local construction industry.
It is expected more than 300 students will train in the facility each year.
The project will also incorporate the latest green building technologies, techniques and materials, including an extensive solar photovoltic array on the roof to capture energy and a system for collecting and reusing rainwater.