Consortium focuses on jobs; tech center targets S.F.'s Bayview-Hunters Point. (San Francisco Center for Technology and Recreation)

A consortium of public and private entities is laying the groundwork to build a roughly $20 million job-training center in economically depressed Bayview-Hunters Point - one of the most ambitious projects of its kind in San Francisco's history.

By calling on the resources of local industries and government, the proposed project hopes to provide the area's 30,000 residents with on-site training in fields such as computer-chip assembly and web-site design. It also would house an arts and music curriculum for students in the area.

The goal is to equip 200 to 400 adults with new job skills and expose 200 to 300 students per year to the arts by the beginning of 2001. …