Childcare Resources of Indian River County will soon move to its new Campus of Early Childhood Excellence, expanding its capacity to invest in the future through affordable, high-quality early childhood education. The new facilities will bring all the nonprofit’s programs together on one central campus. Shannon McGuire Bowman, executive director, explains that Childcare Resources is essentially three programs in one. The first focuses on Early Learning for children 6 weeks to age 5, the second provides Wellness and Early Intervention and the third offers Early Educators’ Professional Development. The campus, located downtown just east of 14th Avenue, comprises two buildings totaling approximately 30,000 square feet, with a fenced playground between them. One building houses the Childcare Resources School, while the other accommodates the other programs and most administrative offices. The buildings, most recently offices of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, were purchased in March 2024, and construction began on St. Patrick’s Day 2025. The building that houses the school was originally part of a bank and was connected to the main branch across the street by a (since-walled-off) underground tunnel. And while they did keep one remnant of its bank days – the window in what they now call the “drive-through room” – they opted to remove the enormous vault. “It took all last summer for them to sledgehammer, blow torch and carry chunks of this vault out,” says Monica Cheslak, director of outreach and philanthropic services. A colorful mural welcomes visitors at the building’s public entrance off 14th Avenue. The entrance will be open during Gallery Strolls, Downtown Fridays and other community events. “When there are downtown events, we’ll open these doors and we can participate with the thought that this then becomes a gallery wall of children’s artwork that we can rotate and display,” says Cheslak. Large windows fill approximately a dozen classrooms with natural light, while observation windows provide views into each room for instructional purposes and donor tours. Each classroom includes a children’s bathroom with tiny child-sized toilets and sinks, along with distinctive half-doors. “Shannon had to have conversations with the county to get them to understand why the half-doors were needed, because they wanted stalls. Those were some negotiations, let me tell you. But little children have to be supervised; otherwise you’d have no idea what they were doing,” says Cheslak. Each also has an adult-sized sink for prepping the breakfast, lunch and a snack provided by a USDA-contracted caterer, that are served family style in each classroom. The project is being managed by Proctor Construction, MBV Engineering and architect Tony Donadio of the Spiezle Architectural Group. Cheslak notes that Donadio was their very first board chair 32 years ago. “We worked with the formation that was here, so other than all having bathrooms and sinks, the configuration, walls and windows of every room is different,” says Cheslak. Depending on how the classrooms are configured, they expect the number of children in the school to increase from about 120 to a maximum of 200. There is also a kitchen with refrigerators and a warming oven, a laundry and storage rooms. The second building will enable them to greatly expand the Professional Development seminars, workshops and classes that they offer to all the early childhood educators in the county, as well as Indian River State College classes to credential early educators. The large meeting room can be configured in a variety of ways to hold small groups or up to 250 people. Its state-of-the-art technology, complete with screens all around the room and speakers in the ceiling, ensure that wherever people sit, they can see and hear the presentation. An adjacent kitchen will enable all-day events. “We’re really going to get a lot of use out of this room and enjoy it,” says Cheslak. “This building was built concrete tilt-up, one of the strongest kinds of buildings you can have for hurricanes, and it’s also very quiet so you don’t really hear the road noise,” says Bowman. She comments that the newer building was constructed in the 1990s; the other, built in the 1940s, is just slightly less soundproof. This second building includes a large therapy gym for such Wellness and Intervention programs as physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, ballet and karate, plus two smaller gyms for one-on-one therapeutic sessions. “We just finished a task force for the Wellness and Intervention program. We brought together some medical professionals and educators to talk about ways that we can expand it beyond the children that we currently serve,” says Bowman. “We’re looking at the space that we have, looking at the gaps in services in the community, and putting some things together how we can share out to other organizations,” Bowman adds. An area for incubator space is reserved for other nonprofits or organizations that provide services that might benefit their families. The second floor provides ample space for current and future staff, private meeting rooms for conversations with parents, and small office suites that could eventually be leased out. Another large room provides dedicated collaborative space for outreach teams, including coaches and higher education staff, who serve more than 55 childcare centers across the community. “Their job is to be out in the field quite a bit. So they’ll come in the morning, figure out where they’re going each day, assemble whatever materials they may need and head out. Right now, there’s five of them in a closet sharing a desk. So this will be really nice for them,” says Cheslak. Bowman says she looks forward to moving into her own office, where a camera-linked monitor will allow her to view activity in every classroom, on the playground and in the parking lot. “What’s really exciting about this property is it’s almost 2 acres, 30,000 square feet, which is exactly what we identified that we wanted. We wanted to be in Central Vero Beach and have some extra space for immediate future growth in the next couple of years,” says Bowman. She notes that they could even build a third story to the newer building. And, although there is ample space for current parking needs, there is also an easement to the large parking lot on the other side of Jetson TV & Appliance. The $15.5 million capital campaign is ongoing with $2.5 million still needed to complete the project. The Grand Opening Celebration is planned for Nov. 12. For more information visit ChildCareResourcesIR.org. <em>Photos by Joshua Kodis</em> [gallery ids="237556,237557,237558,237559,237560,237561,237562,237563,237564,237565,237566,237567,237568,237569,237570,237571,237572,237573,237574,237575"]