BRISTOL – The International Yacht Restoration School’s Marine Systems Training Facility, set to open its doors tomorrow, is being heralded as the “cornerstone” of the marine industrial and education park along Bristol’s Franklin Street.
The building, at the corner of Franklin and Buttonwood streets, will be open to the public from 9 a.m. to noon tomorrow.
The building is located between Buttonwood Street and Metacom Avenue that has grown during the last decade to include 20 businesses and 160 jobs. The IYRS building “represents the culmination of an idea to bring the marine trades and related educational programs together,” Andy Tyska, owner of Bristol Marine and the park’s developer, said in a statement. “In fact, the development itself is a unique effort to provide an incubator for marine businesses, as well as flexible space for marine-trades expansion in Bristol and the state.”
The development is also being lauded by the R.I. Economic Development Corporation (EDC). In a release, EDC’s manager of Business & Workforce Development, Paul Harden, said the combination of industrial and education facilities being built in Bristol is “unique in the marine business.”
“It offers students the opportunity to see, first hand, marine businesses at work and get into the work force faster,” he said. “For the businesses involved, there’s a pool of talent being trained next door and they have the opportunity to affect the type of training that’s provided.”
The International Yacht Restoration School is a nonprofit institution dedicated to education and maritime preservation. It teaches the skills, history, art and science of building yachts, offering intensive programs in traditional boat-building and marine systems. To learn more, visit www.IYRS.org.
