ROCK SPRINGS - Construction on the new University of Rio Grande/Rio Grande Community College Meigs Center is not expected to begin until year's end, but officials broke ceremonial ground near Meigs Middle School on Friday.

The new 12,000 square-foot center, expected to cost in excess of $2 million, will include eight classrooms, office space and other facilities, and will allow the Rio Meigs Center to move from its current location in Middleport.

Rio Grande hopes to be in the building by next fall, a goal Luanne Bowman, RGCC's vice president for financial and administrative affairs, called “ an aggressive time frame.”

The seven-acre site, donated by the Meigs Local Board of Education, was chosen in part because it will allow convenient access to high school students who choose the post-secondary education option. Bowman said the hillside site above the middle school is the “perfect location” for the new center.

The Meigs County Community Improvement Corporation will build the center and lease it to Rio Grande. Once the loan for construction has been paid off, the building will be sold to Rio Grande for a dollar, CIC President Paul M. Reed said.

The CIC also received $400,000 in Appalachian Regional Commission funding, a $200,000 state capital budget appropriation, and a $200,000 gift from Pomeroy attorney Bernard Fultz.

“This is not so much a groundbreaking but a celebration, of a community dream which is becoming reality,” Reed said. “Since Rio Grande first opened its Meigs Center, young and old alike have expanded their educational horizons and received job training right here at home.”

“The future of Meigs County will depend much less on strong backs and much more on strong minds,” Reed said.

Reed and others, representing Rio Grande, elected officials and agencies which provided funding for the project, commended the partnership between local, state and federal agencies which helped make the project possible.