An innovative educational program operated by the University of Arizona in Yuma is making plans for a facility expansion.
The university’s Cooperative Extension program has received $5.5 million to help fund a project that has won the approval of the Yuma County Board of Supervisors.
The cooperative extension program is an offshoot of UA’s agriculture and veterinary sciences curriculum and is tasked with applying technologies for increased agricultural production at the community level.
The mission of the program, dating from its origins more than a century ago, has been, as UA says on its website, to “make science useful.”
The program’s facilities in Yuma are located at 2200 W. 28th Street in a one-story structure that it shares with the Yuma County Public Health Services District. Yuma County has provided some 5,500 square feet in that facility for the program.
According to county documents, Arizona law requires that Yuma must provide “reasonable office space” for the execution of the university’s extension effort.
Those same documents indicate that the new facility will be built off of W. County 15th Street, some 8 miles to the south of downtown Yuma.
Late last year, members of the Yuma County Board of Supervisors voted in favor of spending around $96,000 for a preliminary design of the new facility.
Although an exact timetable for construction has not yet been announced, it is thought that work on the new Cooperative Extension structure could begin sometime next year.
By Garry Boulard
