TLC marks start of new location remodeling with official ‘groundbreaking’

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

A quintet of cute “construction workers” rounded out the group celebrating the beginning of the TLC remodeling project at the 500 North Grand Building Monday afternoon.

The TLC kids, complete with hard hats, safety vests and shovels, represented who the project is for — the children who will receive child care in the years to come at The Learning Center’s new site in the former middle school building.

Also on hand for the “groundbreaking” were TLC board members and staff, representatives of the Charles City school district, Charles City Area Development Corp., Chamber of Commerce, the project architect, the project construction company and others.

Lisa Garden, TLC board president, recounted how more than 20 years ago a group of Charles City folks saw the need for a child care center that led to TLC, and now, more than two decades later, there is an even greater need for child care services that the greatly expanded TLC will help fill.

“The Grand Plan has turned into a reality with our official groundbreaking today,” Garden said. “It couldn’t have been possible without the vision of our director, Pam Ost, and past President Shirley Kelly. These two women have been the driving force for a better facility to grow TLC into the next 20, 30 and even 50 years.”

Garden noted Ost’s efforts in helping secure two large grants from the state that will go a long way toward paying for the 500 North Grand construction — a $775,000 grant last March and a $750,000 grant announced just weeks ago.

“TLC has been fortunate to receive funds also from several other organizations, and memorials to families,” she said. “We still have a gap to fill in our fundraising, so watch out for many fundraisers to come.”

Architect Dan Levi, with Levi Architecture of Cedar Falls, said it was an exciting day.

“It’s incredible community support,” Levi said. “The need is there, we know that. Incredible community support, fantastic partnerships and a champion attitude. …

“The partnership with the school district is absolutely phenomenal and is an example of what we talk about when we go to other communities. Trying to garner that kind of support is what makes a project successful,” he said.

The Charles City school district will continue to own the newer part of the building where TLC will be located, essentially giving the space rent-free to the child care, other than it covering its share of utilities and some other costs.

The school sold the historic 1932 section of the building facing Grand Avenue to developer Shawn Foutch in June 2019 for $1, with the agreement that Foutch will spend $4 million or more to renovate that part of the building into 35 to 40 apartments.

School Superintendent Mike Fisher explained what the school district’s role in the TLC remodeling will be.

“As the owner of the facility, we’ll be doing the HVAC split,” he said, referring to a new heating, ventilation and air conditioning system for the newer part of the building.

“With Shawn Foutch taking over the historic 1930 section, obviously that’s where the boilers are, so we’ve got to put our separate HVAC here,” Fisher said.

The district has also finished replacing half of the roof and will do the other half, and it needs to split off the utility lines coming into the building, so separate utility lines can go to Foutch’s side of the building and to the the school district/TLC side.

And the school district will also install a firewall between the residential part of the building Foutch is developing and the commercial part the school district will keep, Fisher said.

Will McAllister, the project manager for Woodruff Construction, which is doing the remodel, said a main objective is to insulate the exterior block walls by furring in new interior walls to allow space for insulation.

“And then new ceilings, new floors, new casework for the kids, new plumbing fixtures, everything like that. It’s mostly just finish work I would say and just kind of updating each room, getting them more energy-efficient and updating the space, making it look a lot nicer,” McAllister said.

Asked whether the project was getting all the materials it needs, he agreed that is a concern with projects nowadays.

“That’s what we’re going through right now, making sure we have all the materials we need. It’s starting to become apparent some of the items that we weren’t anticipating are now showing up as longer lead times, but I think we’re staying ahead of it as best we can,” he said.

“A lot of the big items, like rooftop units for the HVAC equipment, stuff like that’s on a really, really long lead time, so that’s a big one we’re fighting against,” he said.

McAllister added, “Coming from a small town myself, it’s super cool to see the school board and everyone in the community get together on this project, and make sure it gets completed.”

Garden said the plan is to have construction done by the end of May or early June, then TLC will take several weeks to move things over from its current location on North Jackson Street.

Rather than close TLC for a couple of weeks, the plan is to move things over gradually and get everything ready so sometime around the first of July the kids can transition over.

“We can keep it open as we’re moving from room to room to room,” Garden said. “We can gradually move over here, then have one big day where they all come in.”

Garden said the number of kids that can be cared for will almost double, from the current 90 or so, depending on ages, to another 86, so the size of the staff will have to increase accordingly.

“We’re always looking for help. But we anticipate about double the staff we’re going to have,” she said.

“We are hiring now to anticipate them coming over here to this. We don’t want somebody coming in brand new, wondering where the heck everything is. This way we can have them come over here and everything will be ready, a smooth transition,” she said.

Garden said staff aren’t hired for specific age groups, but can be moved around as needed.

“Pam is so good about keeping that staff,” Garden said, referring to Director Pam Ost. “She’s good about if we have less kids here in this room and we don’t need all that staff she can pull them for another one. … It will be a flexible staff so they can go from one area to another.”

Judy Hauser, a longtime TLC board member, said the infant room is sometimes staffed even beyond what is legally required for the staff-child ratio.

“Our philosophy is if we do a good job with those infants, they will stay with us. Their parents become very engaged and happy to have their children in a nice safe place where they get a lot of loving,” Hauser said.