Editor’s Note: This is the first of two stories about a recent report on the purpose of the Ignite Innovation Center. In Tuesday’s Tribune, Part 2 will continue the comments from Great Bend Economic Development Director Jason Kuilan on this topic.
Great Bend Economic Development’s new executive director, Jason Kuilan, is spreading the word about what GBED does, including plans to finish the Ignite Innovation Center on 10th Street.
Although the next phase of construction on the Innovation Center was halted in November due to a gap in funding, he told Great Bend Chamber of Commerce members that GBED is actively pursuing additional funding and he expects the project to move forward this year.
“This project is going to be a positive impact for the city,” he said Wednesday at the meeting billed as an “informational share-out” at Dry Lake Brewing. That meeting was only open to Great Bend Chamber members. A similar meeting will be open to everyone next week, from 5-7 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 11, also at the Brewery, located at 1305 Main.
The Bright Beginnings childcare center, located in the Farmer Plaza behind the future Innovation Center, was a GBED project supported by the Kansas Children’s Cabinet and Trust Fund.
“It was a huge success for them,” Kuilan said, “and if you know what’s going on in the country, there’s a lot of controversy with child-care centers. We’re not one of them. Within one year, we got up to capacity, and we’re ready to build another; we’re building another one at Claflin right now. So we’re doing great things in the childcare space.”
Because of that, he said, the Kansas Children’s Cabinet Trust Fund invited GBED in late 2023 to apply some federal money it had, “post-COVID,” to build a community center.
The fund administrators announced plans to build 10 community centers across the state, “with new infrastructure to impact the whole community in an positive way.” Great Bend called its future community center an innovation center, “because of our focus on entrepreneurship.”
That was how GBED accepted $4.3 million for the innovation center, knowing it would need to need $7 million before it was done.
“Through other foundations, through tax credits and other programs, we started to close that gap, with the intention of working here locally with businesses and other organizations to close that remaining gap, which started off at about $1.6 million – $2 million.”
Kuilan said the GBED board, former executive director Sara Arnberger and Impact Manager Nicci Henderson said, “‘We can do that.’ Right? Because the alternative is we give up that $4.3 million and it’s going to another community in Kansas, and we don’t have this community center. It’s going to have a huge ROI (return on investment) and a huge positive impact for this community.”
He said the Ignite Center was built on four pillars:
• Childcare — “Not just a regular childcare center, but one that could offer after-hours care.”
• Health care — “Providing a positive impact to the community through health-care education and health-care access.” GBED is “absolutely not” a health-care provider, “but we can act as a Switzerland to all of the different health-care providers in town, to focus on things that are going to positively impact the community. Blood drives, vaccine fairs, health screenings, telehealth access, diabetes education, childhood obesity ... all of the things that the community needs that don't need to be at one or the other health-care provider. We can have a place to facilitate a lot of this.”
• Education — Education can include after-school programming, summer programming, and adult education in things like coding and computer literacy. He said they are working with organizations that can provide education in areas such as cyber-security training and fraud protection for the elderly.
• Workforce and entrepreneurship — “This is going to allow us to take that to the next level by providing additional resources, equipment, tools, access to things that are already out there – the Network Kansas and Small Business Development Center ... rural development ... bring all of these under one roof to elevate the community and allow them access to tools that are already out there.”
In the area of workforce training, Kuilan said Barton Community College will be a big partner.
“I get the question a lot, ‘Why are you doing what Barton’s already doing?’ Well, I don’t think that we are. I think that we are an adjacent organization that’s going to elevate what they’re able to offer for the whole community outside of their student population, and that’s the case for a lot of partnerships with a lot of organizations.”
