ERLANGER — Northern Kentucky University got final state and county funding approval Wednesdayto move ahead with a “world-class, super high-tech corporate training and development facility” near the Greater Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport.

        The Kentucky Capital Projects and Bond Oversight Committee approved a $700,000-a-year lease Wednesday in Frankfort for the facility. Boone County Fiscal Court on Tuesday night unanimously approved a $7.2 million bond issue for the 43,600-square-foot facility, to be developed by Corporex Companies Inc. at CirclePort.

        “This will usher in a whole new era in our ability to serve the needs of the business world,” NKU President James Votruba said Wednesday. “This means so much more capacity to meet the "just-in-time' education training.” Just-in-time training involves constantly retraining workers “just in time” for new technology.

        “It will complement the kind of work that will be done in the new (NKU) community college,” Dr. Votruba said. “The reality is that the noncredit "just-in-time' education market is the fastest-growing postsecondary market in the country.”

        The conference and training center will be the new home to the Metropolitan Education and Development Services unit.

        It will have offices, a 150-seat “smart” auditorium, eight classrooms, eight small group/case learning rooms, an executive board room, a conference room, banquet facilities for 400, a business center and retailing space.

        The facility, first appropriated via a 2000 Kentucky General Assembly vote to allow NKU to underwrite a build-to-lease agreement for a training and development center, could be ready for occupancy by January,according to Corporex executive vice president Tom Banta.

        He said that Corporex was taking a chance in developing what is basically a single-purpose conference center in light of state law that allows for only a two-year lease agreement with NKU.

        “Our primary reason is our support of the university and what the university is trying to accomplish,” he said. “There is also a spinoff effect from this project. We're about halfway through the CirclePort development, and this can both help to attract new companies to CirclePort and assist the companies that are there.”

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