Community Revitalization

Nogales Community Campus

The new Nogales Community Campus is a vibrant live-learn-work environment in the heart of downtown that incorporates a number of historic downtown properties.

Seed funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) provided money to acquire the Nogales Community Campus properties and to work toward the ultimate goal of creating business and job opportunities for local residents:

1) Develop a multi-use training and resource center to provide downtown residents with needed self-sufficiency services, while spurring revitalization of historic buildings in the downtown core. This building will house NCD’s offices, Mariposa Community Health Center’s family resource center, training and meeting rooms for Consortium and community partners, as well as business incubator space for business innovation that will capitalize on international trade and high-paying job opportunities;

2) Build and provide asset services that address current gaps, enabling residents to move from poverty toward increased self-sufficiency. These services include: affordable housing, business development, higher education, workforce development, and other self-sufficiency supports;

3) Create a comprehensive continuum of services referral system that effectively bundles client housing, business, public health and education services with a community engagement program. The continuum of services system, which has helped improve the capacity of partners to track progress at the client, census tract and partnership levels. In 2012, the NRIC members conducted a door-to-door needs assessment to gather input from 300 households

Often, a campus is associated with a university or corporation. The Nogales Community Campus represents a different type of learning environment. The campus will offer the entire community practical, hands-on training that prepares participants for professional and personal success.

Nogales Rural Innovation Consortium

Completion of the Nogales Community Campus is a component of the Nogales Rural Innovation Consortium (NRIC). NCD is the lead partner of this initiative that includes the following partners: Nogales Community Development, Mariposa Community Health Center, Nogales Community Food Bank, Provisional Community College District, University of Arizona Santa Cruz, Citi (Bank), Southwest Fair Housing Council, City of Nogales, Santa Cruz County One-Stop, and the Greater Nogales Santa Cruz County Port Authority.

The NRIC is a component of the Ambos Nogales Border Innovation Zone (ANBIZ) Initiative, a public-private partnership between Ambos (“both”) Nogales, Arizona and Sonora (México) to launch collaborative strategic planning efforts with the primary goal to guide future infrastructure and human service investments in the border region that address housing, higher education, business development, transportation/transit, healthcare and environmental issues.

The Initiative promotes economic self-sufficiency along the U.S.-Mexican border.