Northbrook Village Board approves new daycare center

Updated: April 22, 2013 10:02AM

NORTHBROOK — As many as 162 children soon will be playing and learning at Meadow Park Bright Horizons Day Care on the southwest corner of Techny Road and Founders Drive.

The Northbrook Village Board on Tuesday approved without comment the operation of the business in one of four single-story office buildings proposed to be built by developer J.F. McKinney & Associates.

The facility will offer full-time and part-time care for children from six weeks to five years old.

The site, which is about six acres, belongs to the Society of the Divine Word, a world-wide Catholic missionary group headquartered in Northbrook.

The 13,000-square-foot center also will provide meals, as well as extra-curricular classes in language, dance and art extracurricular classes, according to the proposal.

Plans also include three classrooms for different age groups, an outside playground surrounded by a six-foot fence, and parking for 210 vehicles,

The village’s plan commission had conducted its first public hearing on the daycare center Jan. 15 without any comment from the public.

Commission members found day care to be an appropriate use at the location, but had concerns about traffic patterns and parking around the building, said Michaela Kohlstedt, the village’s senior planner.

So McKinney revised the proposed plan to address the issues and presented the changes Feb. 5 at another hearing, she added.

The commission, satisfied with the improvements, recommended approval of the application with a 15-year term that coincides with the lease the daycare facility will have on the property.

On Feb. 19, the commission made a few changes to the revised draft resolution and voted unanimously to recommend it to the village board for approval, Kohlstedt said.

The ordinance included a special permit for the business to reduce minimum parking stall dimensions, land bank 13 parking spaces and eliminate a required loading space.

The ordinance also required that no more than 32 employees be on the property at one time during normal hours of operation from 6 a.m. through 8:30 p.m. Monday through Friday.

It also called for the village to review the daycare’s pick-up and drop-off procedures in less than two years.

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