photo by: Austin Hornbostel/Journal-World

The Community Children's Center's Early Childhood Community Center will eventually be located at 346 Maine St., currently the Medical Arts Building & Pharmacy.

A new day care center space that’s in the works to help reduce Douglas County’s shortage in child care openings could take another step toward opening next week.

At its Monday meeting, the Lawrence-Douglas County Metropolitan Planning Commission will consider approving a special use permit for day care center use submitted by engineering firm Bartlett & West on behalf of the Community Children’s Center. It’s the next step in the process of launching the nonprofit’s new Early Childhood Community Center at 346 Maine St., which will be a home to not just additional child care slots but also a family resource center designed to help families meet their basic needs and a support network to recruit and retain new early-childhood professionals.

It won’t be the last step in this part of the process, though. If approved Monday, the special use permit will be forwarded to the Lawrence City Commission, which has the final say in the decision and will take its own vote on the permit at a future meeting.

A staff report included with the Planning Commission’s agenda for Monday includes some detailed information about how the Community Children’s Center plans to use its space at 346 Maine St. The day care center is slated for the largest footprint of the building’s square footage by far at 14,843 square feet, more than a third of the whole 36,636-square-foot building. It’s slated to be staffed by 25 employees, according to the report.

Smaller portions of the building, meanwhile, will house a medical office, dentist’s office and pharmacy, respectively. Combined, they’ll have 14 employees.

The staff report also notes one modification to the current site: the addition of an exterior play yard in front of the building.

As the Journal-World reported, renovation at the building began back in January. Community Children’s Center Executive Director Kim Polson said at the time that the renovations, once complete, would result in the creation of seven classrooms equipped to serve 70 children during the day and another 70 overnight and during weekend hours.

That won’t completely fill the county’s gap in child care openings, but it’ll at least make a dent. After Douglas County leaders granted the Community Children’s Center more than $3 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds to support the project last year, Polson told the Journal-World recent data indicates a potential need for nearly 3,000 more slots of early-childhood care service than what’s previously available.

Polson said in January the goal is for renovations to be complete by early 2024 and to then begin opening classrooms as they’re filled.