Duxbury child care center looks to purchase its building
August 21, 2021 | By Lisa Scagliotti 
The former Duxbury Elementary School has been home to The Children's Early Learning Space child care and preschool since 2003. The nonprofit center now has a purchase agreement to buy the building. Photo by Lisa Scagliotti
The Children's Early Learning Space will host an online public meeting Monday, Aug. 23, as part of the process for it to purchase the property it has leased on Main Street in Duxbury since 2003.
The nonprofit, state-licensed child care center and preschool occupies space on the ground floor of what was the Duxbury Elementary School before Waterbury and Duxbury merged their schools in the late 1990s. The center has its roots as the employee child care opened in 1989 at the Waterbury Ben & Jerry’s ice cream factory. It moved off campus to Waterbury village for several years and became a separate nonprofit entity in 1999.
The vacated Duxbury Elementary School offered a fitting location for a child care and preschool.
Today the Children’s Space cares for up to 40 children per day from birth through age 5 and its preschool is part of the pre-K programming in the Harwood Unified Union School District.
The center has entered an agreement to purchase the building from owner Doug Boyden for $950,000 and is looking to complete the purchase by the end of September, according to Lindsay Sullivan, president of the center’s board of directors.
Most of the financing will come from a U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development loan which requires a public meeting about the project, Sullivan said. The center is looking to raise $100,000 for its share of the purchase and closing costs; a second $100,000 fundraising goal is on the horizon for 2022 for site improvements.
The change in ownership will allow the child care center to expand over the next three years. Its goal is to add 16 more spots for children in the 0-3 age group, according to project documents.
Although the center will shift from paying rent to making loan payments, it will have new income from several rental units in the building, Sullivan said. The center does not plan to expand into the upper floor where apartments are located.
In addition, the roughly 2-acre property that stretches to the Winooski River is ideal for recreation and events and could become a resource for the community to use as part of the center’s campus, the center explains in project materials.
The community is invited to attend the public meeting scheduled for 6 p.m. on Aug. 23. To get the online link for the video conference meeting, send an email to tcelsdirector@gmail.com.