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A new Willowdale Child Care and Learning Centre, a county facility on city property, is to be constructed. It replaces a closed, asbestos-ladened one.
That's the result of an agreement announced Thursday in which the city will sell the Willow Road site to Wellington County for $150,000 so the county can build a new one serving roughly 50 families.
"We're hoping to have it open in fall, 2014," county child care services director Luisa Artuso said, adding parents will be pleased to learn the rebuilt centre will offer an infant, toddler and preschool program.
It's in the early stages of planning and details aren't yet available on costs and construction timetable, though Artuso said the county has a $2-million budget to draw from.
"The city was happy to partner with the county," municipal community and social services executive director Derek Thomson said, adding the final agreement has yet to be worked out but the deal is definitely going ahead.
Thomson said when the centre was closed earlier this year, a city-county search for an alternate location proved elusive.
"All the sites had some constraints," he said.
That led to the decision to work toward rebuilding on the current site at 95 Willow Rd., a high density area of Guelph.
The city at Monday's council meeting endorsed the sale and an accompanying zoning change at 95 Willow to allow for the new daycare development.
The west-end site has an unfortunate recent history. It was closed for a time when asbestos was discovered in vermiculite insulation in 2011, spurring a county investigating. Fire-resistant, fibrous asbestos was incorporated in Canadian construction up until the 1980s, but has since been viewed a health risk in prolonged exposure.
The discovery in late 2011 led to an evacuation and temporary closure. Though it reopened after cleanup efforts and a determination that asbestos levels were low, it was closed again last May when more of the mineral was found.
-reprinted from Guelph Mercury