A Miami developer is spending $5 million to transform a 15,000-square-foot former ambulance service facility in Vernon Hills into a 200-child early education center, with the goal of opening this spring.
Pablo Barreiro is chairman of Fortec, a real estate developer that focuses on early education centers and is redeveloping the Vernon Hills building. He said it has worked on more than 30 schools or education centers in a dozen states, and has three acquisitions in the Chicagoland area, including the new Vernon Hills location.
Barreiro said the new center, sitting at 401 West Sullivan Drive, will be for children between the ages of 18 months to 6 years, and will be operated by the Nest School, a childcare operator with more than 50 schools across the country. Another Nest School center, also developed by Fortec, is in a former Barrington 220 School District administration building.
“We love the state of Illinois, and we are looking to do more in the Chicago area,” Barreiro said. “There is still a lot of demand for these early education centers.”
His sentiment seems to be reflected in data from the Illinois State Board of Education, which considers the area to be an early childhood desert.
Barreiro said the new Vernon Hills center will create 30 to 40 jobs, and provide care for more than 200 children. Construction work will include a complete interior renovation, installing a new outdoor playground and redesigning the exterior. Barreiro said officials expect to finish construction by this spring.
Vernon Hills Director of Community Development Andrew Jennings said the developers are currently in permit review and expect to begin work in the next few weeks.
According to board meeting documents from when the project was approved in June, residents raised concerns over how the influx of 200 kids would negatively impact the area’s traffic, which is already poor. A representative with the developer said that a traffic study indicated the new center would not make traffic worse than it already is.