Workforce Connections consolidates service

Workforce Connections, the federally funded job placement and training agency, has reached a deal to rent a 18,729-square-foot space in the Charleston Festival shopping center in Las Vegas to house a new one-stop employment center and its administrative offices.

Under the six-year lease with two five-year options, Workforce Connections will pay $1.41 per square foot at the 6336 W. Charleston Blvd. location, according to the document sign Nov. 26.

Workforce Connections anticipates spending $800,000 to $1 million to re build the former retail space into a facility officially dubbed, "Workforce Connections One-Stop Career Center." The lease starts Jan. 1 and the public agency hopes to have construction done for a spring 2013 move-in, said Peter Bacigalupi, Workforce Connections chief information officer.

The project will allow the agency to consolidate service and some training activities under one roof, plus be across the street from the College of Southern Nevada at 6375 W. Charleston Blvd., which is one of the agency's training partners, Bacigalupi said Monday.

"It's the first step to a comprehensive, one-stop delivery," he said.

The new center will also house the agency's administrative offices, which are located at 7251 W. Lake Blvd. The Labor Department pays for the agency, which has just under 40 employees, Bacigalupi said.

The landlord listed on the lease is National Solutions LLC, based in Moorpark, Calif. Bobby Khorshidi, managing principal of Partners Capital Management, the Los Angeles-based private equity firm that controls the shopping center, said the rental deal is not a money maker for him.

"We didn't make money, but it will enable us to bring more traffic to the shopping center and increase occupancy," Khorshidi said Monday.

The lease said the landlord will contribute $550,000 toward construction costs to convert the old retail space into the one-stop career center.

Bacigalupi said monthly rent will be $26,408. But when staffers begin moving in, the agency will pay a pro-rated share for the portion of the building it is using, he said.

For example, when the building section for the one-stop employment service and training center opens, the monthly rent will be $11,280, he said. When the part of the building designated for the administrative offices open later in the year and the entire building is used, Workforce Connections will pay the full $26,408 monthly rent, he noted.

The consolidated employment center will allow the agency to have its own staffers on site to assess a client's skills and education while also having some training partners at the same location to help the unemployed person, Bacigalupi said.

Funded partners include Bridge Counseling Associates, Southern Nevada Regional Housing Authority, Latin Chamber of Commerce Community Foundation, Southern Nevada Children's First and Goodwill of Southern Nevada.

The retail space in that building is nearly empty, with the exception of one tenant who might be moving to another location in the shopping center, said Chris Clifford, a broker with the Equity Group that worked on the lease deal. The Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market is the shopping center's primary anchor.

Workforce Connections is an ideal tenant for the soon-to-be former retail space because one side of the building has great exposure to the street, while the other side doesn't, which hurt a retail tenant, Clifford said.

The job service agency helped 2,000 to 3,000 people last year, he said. For more information about Workforce Connections, log onto www.nvworkforceconnections.org.

Contact reporter Alan Snel at asnel@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5273.