LOUISVILLE, Ky. — In central Kentucky, the town of Glendale will soon be home to a new battery training facility. 

Officials held a groundbreaking ceremony Tuesday for the Electric Vehicle Battery Training Center that’ll be used to train employees of the Ford BlueOval SK Battery Park.

Construction began in February for the future satellite campus for Elizabethtown Community and Technical College.

“We are a partner in this great venture that is bringing innovative good paying jobs to our region,” said Juston Pate, President and CEO of ECTC.

The 42,000-square-foot training facility will train students on how to build EV batteries for BlueOval SK and Ford Motor Company.

“This milestone is an investment in our state, our future, and in our people,” said Gov. Andy Beshear. “Since just June 2020, we have seen $10.6 billion of new investment in Kentucky’s EV industry.”

At the groundbreaking ceremony, Beshear acknowledged the General Assembly’s role in paving the way for the facility.

“Our General Assembly came together in a special session putting together a package that helped fund this facility as well as new types of incentives that landed our largest project ever,” Beshear said.

Back in September, Beshear signed Senate Bill 5 that the General Assembly put together, allocating $25 million for this project.

Elizabethtown Mayor Jeff Gregory said this facility will help retain students in the region.

“What this training center does is it gives us the tools to be able to do that—to show them, ‘Listen, you can have a great career right here in Hardin County,’” Gregory said.

With BlueOval SK Battery Park employing 5,000 people, funneling students through a training center will create a flow of work to build electric vehicle batteries.

Construction of the training facility began in February. It’s scheduled to finish spring of 2024.