Proposed Challenger Learning Center will be located in Rainbow City

Greg Bailey, The Gadsden Times
Updated ·3 min read

Rainbow City will be the site of a proposed Challenger Learning Center in Etowah County, the advisory council touting the STEM education facility and the Community Foundation of Northeast Alabama announced Monday afternoon in a news release.

The center will be constructed on 5 acres off Lumley Road, adjacent to John S. Jones Elementary School and Rainbow Middle School, and within a few hundred yards of the Etowah County Mega Sports Complex.

Sixth-graders from Sierra Middle School in Las Cruces, New Mexico, work at their assigned roles in the simulated Mission Control at city's Challenger Learning Center in 2021. A similar center planned for Etowah County will be located in Rainbow City.
Sixth-graders from Sierra Middle School in Las Cruces, New Mexico, work at their assigned roles in the simulated Mission Control at city's Challenger Learning Center in 2021. A similar center planned for Etowah County will be located in Rainbow City.

That land, valued at $450,000, is being donated by Rainbow City, whose City Council has approved additional incentives, including site preparation (valued at $175,000) and groundskeeping ($10,000 annually for seven years, and a school resource officer for the facility.

Design work on the center, which will offer STEM-related activities targeted to middle school students, including space shuttle and mission control simulators, will take place this year, according to the release, and the goal is for construction to start in 2024.

“A Challenger Learning Center is an opportunity for all cities and counties in the seven-county service area (Blount, Calhoun, Cherokee, DeKalb, Etowah, Marshall and St. Clair) to engage with businesses, corporations and the community to support our children in STEM learning and career and workforce readiness,” Barry Cherry, chairman of the advisory council, said in the release.

It would be the only Challenger Learning Center in Alabama (one was previously located in the McWane Science Center in Birmingham); there are more than 30 nationwide.

“We’re excited,” Rainbow City Mayor Joe Taylor said. “We felt like we’d be the right location for it. We are the city that checks the boxes as far as the travel time for students to get here, because we catch that portion of Jefferson County that’s so critical as far as the amount of students that would be exposed to this Challenger Center.”

The release noted the site’s accessibility to Interstates 59 and 759, U.S. Highway 411 and Alabama Highway 77.

“Not only that, we’re putting it close to our recreational areas, where students will be able to enjoy that change of pace,” Taylor said. “It’s also close to our educational corridor ... we just felt like it was the optimum location, and the Challenger Center task force felt the same way.”

“We just think it’s a great addition, not just to Rainbow City but to this region,” the mayor said. “We’re just excited to see this area embrace it and come along and support it, like we all said we would do from the very beginning.”

Rainbow City’s package is valued at between $700,000 and $800,000, which combined with other financial commitments should put the advisory council over the 10% local match required to get $8.5 million in state funding for the project in the 2023 supplemental education budget passed by the Legislature.

Community Foundation of Northeast Alabama has pledged $200,000 to the project ($30,000 annually for five years and $50,000 for the simulator reservation fee). Etowah County has committed $100,000 over four years, and Attalla and Hokes Bluff $25,000 each over five years. The Community Development Committees for Etowah County’s three House districts have each pledged $10,000.

Gadsden’s City Council recently tabled a $250,000 commitment over five years with stipulations that included a requirement that the center be built inside the city limits and that the city be represented on the facility’s governing board.

“We are excited to know the Challenger Center will be coming to Etowah County,” Mayor Craig Ford said in a statement. “Congratulations to the center’s leaders for finding a great location in our neighboring community. I look forward to seeing Gadsden city students gain valuable STEM-based educational experience, which will contribute to a thriving local workforce for Gadsden and Etowah County.”

Public donations to the project can be made online at https://bit.ly/3Jz6SBb or by mail to the Community Foundation of Northeast Alabama (the fiscal sponsor), 1130 Quintard Ave., Suite 100, Anniston AL 36201.

This article originally appeared on The Gadsden Times: Proposed Challenger Learning Center to be in Rainbow City