Three Madison projects underway this year will aim to expand child care options for parents in a landscape that has seen rapidly increasing costs, driven largely by the phasing out of Wisconsin’s Child Care Counts program, The Capital Times reports.
Nonprofit child care center The Playing Field is adding a 15,000-square-foot facility in a former Menards location as part of the new training center for the union Plumbers Local 75. The site will have child care slots for over 100 children. The project has been underway for roughly six years but has faced delays. The nonprofit is currently working to raise the final $750,000 needed to begin construction, scheduled for this month. The center is expected to open in summer 2025.
Madison College is set to build a child care center at its Goodman South campus, partially funded by $.29 million in Workforce Innovation Grant funds from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. The city of Madison sold the former Fire Station No. 6 next to the campus to the college for $1 on the condition that it operate as a child care center for at least a decade. The center will cost at least $10 million; the college has raised around $8 million through its own budget, grants, and gifts. The center will have the capacity to serve 80 children and break ground in September, with an estimated opening in fall 2025.
The college is also nearly doubling the capacity of a child care center currently in existence at the Truax Campus in a former Penske Truck leasing building. Renovations are underway and will increase the center’s four classrooms to seven, and its overall capacity from 50 children to 80 by January.
