{"id":24657,"date":"2024-11-27T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-11-27T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/child-care-center-in-durango-seeks-new-space-after-landlord-refuses-lease-renewal\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:57:45","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:57:45","slug":"child-care-center-in-durango-seeks-new-space-after-landlord-refuses-lease-renewal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/child-care-center-in-durango-seeks-new-space-after-landlord-refuses-lease-renewal\/","title":{"rendered":"Child care center in Durango seeks new space after landlord refuses lease renewal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Amy
Amy Eckhart, director of The Growing Place, a child care center for toddlers, said she is losing her space at the Junction Creek Health & Rehabilitation Center in Durango after the nursing home was purchased by The Ensign Group. She said 14 families she serves are scrambling to find alternate child care services, a challenge because of long waitlists at other centers and the high demand for child care. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The Growing Place, an early child care center in Durango, is being forced out of its 13-year-old location at the Junction Creek Health & Rehabilitation Center, a nursing home purchased by The Ensign Group in September.<\/p>\n

The Growing Place serves 14 families and up to 10 toddlers daily who are being displaced by Ensign\u2019s decision not to continue the lease agreement with the child care center. Amy Eckhart, The Growing Place director, said her lease expires on Dec. 20.<\/p>\n

She said it will be months before she can get a new facility licensed, and that\u2019s assuming she rapidly finds a suitable and affordable location to continue operations.<\/p>\n

When she broke the news to the families she serves, parents were sad, upset and disappointed. She said some parents cried, realizing they may have to quit their jobs in order to take care of their children. Some parents hugged her. Other parents reached out to real estate agents in search of new locations, and some parents called Ensign for an explanation.<\/p>\n

She said families are scrambling to find alternate child care options.<\/p>\n

Ensign representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment, and attempts to reach Ensign\u2019s Junction Creek Health & Rehabilitation Center administrator were not successful.<\/p>\n

The Growing Place has a small staff that consists of Eckhart, one full-time child care provider and one substitute provider.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of shocking,\u201d Eckhart said. \u201cThe gal that\u2019s with me now has been with me for about 2\u00bd years, and she keeps telling me it\u2019s the best job she\u2019s ever had. And she\u2019s so sad.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eckhart\u2019s a seasoned child care professional with a strong reputation and 17 years of experience at The Growing Place. She said she recognizes families she\u2019s served everywhere she goes in town. The children she cared for nearly two decades ago, who she still knows, are now college sophomores.<\/p>\n

\"The
The Growing Place, an early child care center in Durango, needs a new facility after The Ensign Group purchased the nursing home the child care center leases and decided not to renew the lease. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

In tears, she told The Durango Herald<\/em> that The Growing Place has been a \u201cphenomenal\u201d center for many people, and it shows in text messages and emails of support she\u2019s received from current and former clients.<\/p>\n

She said parents have asked her what they can do to help, but a solution isn\u2019t so simple to work out.<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing can happen overnight,\u201d she said. \u201cThe licensing rules and regulations with the state of Colorado, with the fire department, with the city of Durango, it is \u2026 a huge process, and everything has to be perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said Durango and La Plata County, like the rest of the country, is suffering a severe shortage of licensed child care services and families have sat on waitlists with other centers for a year or longer.<\/p>\n

\u201cEnsign moved into our small town, without taking any pulse of the community, and promptly removed a well loved, established, high quality child care center without consideration,\u201d she said in a text message to the Herald<\/em>. \u201cThis has left me scrambling trying to find a new, licensable facility, announcing the stressful news to families and a lot of unnecessary personal stress.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ensign is a publicly traded company with more than 300 assisted living centers in 14 states.<\/p>\n

Brendan Trimboli, one of the parents who has a child enrolled at The Growing Place, said he spoke to an Ensign representative overseeing Colorado operations, who told him when Ensign purchased Junction Creek Health & Rehabilitation Center, it wasn\u2019t aware of the lease agreement with The Growing Place.<\/p>\n

Trimboli said he reached out to the representative with the hope they could work out an extension of the child care center\u2019s lease.<\/p>\n

He said if Ensign had done its due diligence ahead of purchasing the nursing home, it would have been aware of The Growing Place, which has a fenced-in backyard for outdoor play and is \u201chard to miss\u201d if one is onsite. Even if a lease extension could not be worked out, at least families who rely on The Growing Place could have had a better head start in finding alternative child care services.<\/p>\n

The representative told him Ensign plans to use The Growing Place\u2019s space for assisted living and nursing training, although it isn\u2019t in a hurry to implement the space for that, he said. He was also told the child care center is considered a liability to Ensign. One example of why is that Ensign cannot allow registered sex offenders into the nursing home if a child care center is on site.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe decision to just \u2026 not even consider extending or offering an extension of lease to Amy and The Growing Place doesn\u2019t really take into account the challenges we have as a community to even find child care to begin with, let alone high quality child care like Amy provides,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Eckhart said when Ensign purchased Junction Creek Health & Rehabilitation Center, she was given the impression her lease wasn\u2019t an issue and it would be business as usual.<\/p>\n

Ownership of the Junction Creek Health & Rehabilitation Center has changed hands several times over the years, and she\u2019s always maintained a good relationship with the owners or administrators, she said.<\/p>\n

Trimboli said the whole ordeal is bringing unnecessary hardship on parents such as himself and his wife, Laura, who have enrolled their 18-month-old at The Growing Place. Now they need to find a new option for their son\u2019s child care.<\/p>\n

\"Amy
Amy Eckhart, director of The Growing Place, an early child care center in Durango, is in desperate need of a new facility after The Ensign Group purchased the nursing home she leases and decided not to renew her lease. The ordeal has sent her clients, 14 families, scrambling for alternate child care options. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

His wife has already reduced hours at work in the U.S. Department of Agriculture to care for their son. She can\u2019t reduce her hours any more without their family losing health insurance.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would get to a point where she would just be better off quitting the job,\u201d he said. \u201c\u2026 We are actually, legitimately faced with that decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

Matthew Zepelin is another Durango resident with a child enrolled at The Growing Place. He said his family is happy and grateful for the services Eckhart has provided for his daughter Lily, nearly 2\u00bd, who has been at The Growing Place for a little over a year.<\/p>\n

\u201cCaring for young children is really a kind of calling for Amy, because she just seems incredibly connected to it,\u201d he said. Intellectually, emotionally, she has a really strong intuition around what\u2019s happening for children.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said Eckhart notices when his daughter has learned a new word or something in her life has changed, and she is a \u201cdeeply caring, committed person\u201d and she should be treated like the \u201csuperstar\u201d she is.<\/p>\n

\u201cLearning that the place is closing on very little notice is kind of a shock to the system, and also just leaves us scrambling to figure out a solution,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

cburney@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\"Brian
Brian and Stephanie Kirk receive early child care for their son, Seger, 2, from The Growing Place, a child care center in Durango. Fourteen families have their children enrolled at The Growing Place, which announced earlier this month it\u2019s closing its doors because its lease is not being continued past December after The Ensign Group purchased the Junction Creek Health & Rehabilitation Center where The Growing Place is established. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

14 families scramble in search of alternative options<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24658,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[431,747,28,167,146],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-24657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-business-general","tag-children","tag-headlines","tag-local-news-lead","tag-parent-and-child"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24657"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78623,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24657\/revisions\/78623"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24657"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=24657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}