Release Date: December 16, 2009
Office of Mayor Julian Castro: 207-7083
Mission Verde Center opens at Cooper Middle School on San Antonio's West Side
The City of San Antonio opened the Mission Verde Center at Cooper today, a first of its kind education, training and research center focused on renewable and energy efficient technologies.
Housed in the former James Fenimore Cooper Middle School on the city's West Side, the Mission Verde Center will be a living laboratory aimed at harnessing green technologies and training programs while helping to revitalize neighborhoods.
Mayor Julián Castro said the center at 1700 Tampico Street is an exciting partnership involving the city, San Antonio Independent School District, Alamo Colleges, San Antonio Youth Centers, Texas Engineering Experiment Station, City Public Service (CPS) Energy, and San Antonio Water System (SAWS).
"The Mission Verde Center represents a commitment by the public and private sectors in the nation's seventh-largest city to become a leader in sustainability," Castro said. "On the West Side of San Antonio, we will be educating, training and inspiring our populace to take advantage of the green economy of the future."
The Center will help advance the goals of Mission Verde by showcasing how investment in energy efficiency, renewable energy and water conservation can help create jobs and stimulate economic growth within the framework of a sustainable future. The Center will also play a central role in developing a new green jobs curriculum among educational stakeholders that align with the needs of green businesses and industries.
The City of San Antonio has allocated $1 million of its energy efficiency and conservation block grant funds toward energy improvements at the Mission Verde Center. The Texas Engineering Experiment Station's (TEES) Texas Center for Applied Technology will design, implement and monitor these improvements.
The City's contribution to the campus will include a comprehensive audit of the facility to locate opportunities for advanced energy efficiency technologies. These retrofits will complement the workforce training efforts led by Alamo Colleges and San Antonio Youth Centers in weatherization, green construction and plumbing, solar power systems and smart grid systems installation.
Core partners include Alamo Colleges, San Antonio Youth Centers (SAYC), SAISD, Texas Engineering Experiment Station (TEES), City of San Antonio, CPS Energy, and San Antonio Water System (SAWS). Additional public and private sector partners will locate at Mission Verde Center either for short-term technology demonstration, research or as longer term partners providing services that address center's goal.