NMTI picks Koblerville as future site

The Northern Marianas Technical Institute is eyeing Koblerville as a future site for a planned state-of-the-art training facility. The total lot area is 15,000 square meters, is near the Koblerville Gymnasium, and is surrounded by villages, which means it would be accessible to students.

According to NMTI board chair John Gonzales, the Department of Public Lands has designated that particular area in Koblerville to NMTI and they are hoping DPL would also designate the surrounding area to the trade school.

“We are excited about it,” he said, “and we are hoping that the surrounding area totaling 20,000 square meters will also be given to us in anticipation of the comprehensive facilities that we would need.”

He said NMTI will not only need classrooms and the offices for the operations of the school but also areas that will allow it to provide ancillary services such as cafeteria, library, and an administration office.

The Koblerville site will also have dormitories for students coming from Tinian and Rota.

“A school dormitory is very essential as we believe it is better to bring the students over here instead of sending instructors to Tinian and Rota,” said NMTI chief executive officer Agnes McPhetres. “This will be beneficial to the students coming from those islands.”

She said it has been determined that building a dormitory in the NMTI campus is important to welcome students who are not from Saipan.

McPhetres pointed out that NMTI’s Rota facility had a very high drop-off rate.

“We started with 32 students and ended with three graduates,” she said.

She said the school looked into this and, with so many factors affecting the attendance of students there, like typhoons, etc., “we had to investigate what happened to best strategize future programs.”

Hiring an instructor for Rota is also hard and expensive, she added.

About $6 million is the needed to jumpstart the construction of the Koblerville site and the NMTI board has applied for a grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration.

“…We will start construction when we receive the grant from the Northern Marianas Housing Corp. through the U.S. Housing & Urban Development,” Gonzalez said.

McPhetres said she will be meeting with representatives of the Economic Development Administration from Washington, D.C. this week. “So far, they like our proposal but they recommend to add more such as a water tank and I threw in the idea of solar energy and they love the idea. …Aside from the grant, we can also get donations from private companies to help construct the facility…”