Officials from MassBIO, a trade organization focused on the state’s life sciences sector, swapped ground-breaking shovels for sledgehammers on Tuesday as they heralded a new workforce training center planned for the site of the former Boston Globe headquarters on Morrissey Boulevard.

The event, which drew Gov. Maura Healey’s labor chief Lauren Jones, Dorchester Councillor Frank Baker and Councillor At-Large Michael Flaherty, marks the construction start of the lab and classroom space, a state-of-the-art facility that aims to bring underrepresented individuals into well-paying jobs and lifelong careers in the life sciences industry, one of the pillars of the Bay State economy.

Bioversity, a nonprofit launched by MassBIO, will oversee the effort.

The facility will be on the first floor, in back of the building, directly behind a ground-level water tank and I-93. Tuesday’s kickoff to construction means “we will be able to open our first training cohort in January of 2024,” said Zach Stanley, Bioversity’s executive director.

The nonprofit plans on having 100 students graduate from the program by the end of 2024. Stanley expects that there will be 5 cohorts, each one consisting of roughly 20 to 24 students in the first year. 

“We’re in a unique moment where we have such a tight labor market and we need to bring in more people,” said Jones, whose office put the statewide unemployment rate for June at 2.8 percent, one percentage point below the national unemployment figure of 3.8 percent.

Bioversity’s inaugural certificate training program, which comes with a $500-a- week stipend, is open to all high school graduates or those with a GED who are interested in pursuing a life science career. The program involves an intensive eight-week commitment where participants will spend six hours a day, four times a week in both the classroom and the lab. Through the curriculum, which was created in partnership with Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, students will be prepared for entry-level jobs. 

“We are planning on opening the application period for that first cohort sometime in September, and we are going to be publicizing it far and wide, but we’re working particularly with community partners in Dorchester and in Boston because we believe the best people to engage with this program are Boston residents,” said Stanley. 

According to him, the entry-level positions and other roles involve lab operations, facilities management, supply chain, and procurement – “the types of roles that support the day-to-day operations of what goes on in a biological lab.”

Stanley and his team hope Bioversity will allow Dorchester residents to work at financially sustainable jobs. They especially hope that Dorchester residents who join the cohorts can eventually work at Southline Boston, as the developer of the former Boston Globe headquarters has renamed the site, and keep companies local.

There are eight companies that now call Southline Boston home. Four of them are under the banner of Flagship Pioneering, the venture capital firm behind vaccine maker Moderna. Portal, a biotech venture capital firm based in Chicago, also has space, and has signed a lease for a company under its banner. The fitness apparel company Nobull is another tenant.

“The way we envision this is that people with just a high school degree can get a job, a foot in the door in this industry, and put it on their resume. But more importantly, they can have the experience necessary to be promoted and advance across the industry,” said Stanley. “It also may open their eyes to further educational opportunities that hopefully we can facilitate.”

Several speakers at the event credited Baker, who is leaving the City Council in January after serving 12 years, with helping to push for the workforce training center.

The future of the Columbia Point peninsula is going to be about job training and biotech, Baker said, in a nod to the development boom up and down Morrissey Boulevard, with multiple residential and commercial towers in the pipeline seeking city approvals.

Referencing his upcoming departure from the Council, Baker quipped, “I might come down here for a job.”

Managing editor Gintautas Dumcius contributed to this report.