The Augusta CyberWorks, located in one of Augusta’s severely distressed communities, will be repositioning two historic textile mills that have been vacant for decades and could be classified as a brownfield site. Augusta is well-positioned to become the cybersecurity hub of the Southeast given the presence of the NSA and Fort Gordon Army Base. In an effort to ensure that the opportunities at the Augusta CyberWorks campus are inclusive and accessible to all, especially the low-income and minority residents of the Harrisburg neighborhood and veterans across the Augusta MSA, the project sponsors created a $1.45MM fund to support the launching of the UMBC CyberWorks Academy, which will cover tuition for targeted students and administrative costs for the faculty and staff. The initial launching will target 120 participants (including active military personnel, veterans, and low-income residents) and will include tuition assistance to complete the 9-month intensive cybersecurity training cohort, course materials, a potential 90-day paid internship, and 1-on-1 mentoring. The tuition subsidy will benefit at least 50 participants by year-end 2019. Overall, UMBC expects to train 3 cohorts of 20 during the initial 18-months, and over 800 participants will receive cybersecurity certifications during the NMTC compliance period. UMBC will also partner with several nonprofits, including the Boys and Girls Club and the Wounded Warrior Project, to create a pipeline of at least 50-80 eligible low-income residents for various coding, mentoring, and certificate programs. In addition to the educational opportunities, the project will create 96 construction jobs (of which 10% will offer Davis-Bacon wages) and 100 permanent jobs.
Urban Action Community Development (UACD) provided $5MM in NMTC allocation for the first phase of the Augusta CyberWorks Initiative, which is the adaptive reuse of two historic textile mills. In response to the projected market growth in Augusta’s cybersecurity and technology sectors due to the U.S. Army’s Cyber Command Center at the Fort Gordon Army Base and the National Security Agency’s recent 120-acre facility employing over 4,000 persons, the Augusta CyberWorks campus will be a large-scale mixed-use campus that will deliver 1 million SF of space for a commercial and light industrial high technology research and development park, residential space, a hotel, and community-serving amenities and retail. Phase I of the project is the redevelopment of two of the campus’ buildings that will provide commercial and educational space to support the following cybersecurity users – the new headquarters for EDTS, a regional technology consulting firm that specializes in providing managed I.T. services, network security and advanced infrastructure solutions to organizations across the Southeast; and the University of Maryland at Baltimore County’s (“UMBC”) CyberWorks Academy, which will be its satellite location for UMBC to offer an intensive 6-9 month cybersecurity classroom training program to current military personnel, veterans transitioning out of the military, and Augusta’s low- income residents.
