A national child care company is putting down roots in Okotoks, with a new facility expected to open later this year.
Construction should be finished on the 9,000 square foot Kids & Company day care centre at Westmount Centre by August.
The centre will accommodate approximately 140 children with 24 spaces being for infants, 48 for toddler and 48 for preschool. It will also have a school-age room that will care for children between ages of six to 12 years during school closures and will offer a before and after school program for children.
Adam Ramsay, who is the real estate agent for the location, said they’ll be the first business to open up across from Westmount School this year, and believes they will make a great addition to the area.
“They run a very first class sort of higher end daycare operation, tremendous reputation. I'm sure it's going to be a great fit, and great amenity for the town,” he said.
The company currently has 67 locations across Canada, 15 of which are in Alberta.
Linda Starr, Kids & Company’s director of sales and marketing, said they’re eager to add a new location and believes that the situation is ideal for a commuter town like Okotoks.
“You could start in Calgary and transfer, many people start at a downtown location when the child is an infant because they like taking them to work with them and then when the child is older it gets to be a hassle,” she said. “So they transfer to a location that may be closer to their home, which could be more in the suburbs.”
The day care is expected to be first building ready to go in the development, which will also house a new restaurant and office space.
The land where the daycare is going was originally owned by the Town for a fire station to be built on, but was no longer needed once the Southridge Emergency Services Building came into play.
Okotoks Economic Development Manager Shane Olson said council then had to make a decision about what to do with the property.
“We have day cares in the community but council at the time was getting a lot of feedback and of course with 40 per cent of our population being under the age of 20, there’s a lot of children here, every year we’re seeing 400-500 new births directly attributed to Okotoks,” he said. “ So there’s an ongoing demand for childcare facilities and (council) said you know what, we have this site, it was supposed to be for a fire hall, what other good will things can we do with it that might benefit the community? And child care was the option that council wanted to go with there.”
The land was rezoned for direct control daycare before being purchased by the adjacent developer who was already developing other commercial buildings next door.
“It’s a great location, close to Westmount school,” he said. “And it will provide some decent employment in terms of early childhood education workers.”
