The city of Aspen will defer construction on an early childhood education center at Burlingame Ranch in favor of bolstering existing child care providers.
The Aspen City Council agreed to step away from the proposed project during a work session on Monday night after a child care needs assessment conducted last year found the proposed 94-student early childhood education center would negatively impact existing providers. Instead, councilors decided to redirect resources originally earmarked for the development toward additional investments in affordability, workforce sustainability and program sustainability.
“The community child care needs assessment indicated that [the new child care center] could be detrimental to existing child care providers if we build this facility now,” said Megan Monaghan, co-manager of Kids First, during the work session. “It would draw funds away from existing child care centers and it could create a competitive environment for families and staff.”
Kids First conducted the child care need assessment last year, which found there is adequate space for preschool-aged children, but not for infants or toddlers in the existing child care centers in Pitkin County. While the Burlingame center would help meet some needs for infant and toddler care, it would add too many preschool spots and potentially impact the financial viability, staffing and other operational factors of other child care providers in the area, the council concluded.
In 2024, the city council approved the land use entitlements to build the early childhood education center at Burlingame after several years of design and program development. The proposed facility would be a 15,300-square-foot licensed center with three playgrounds, and room for 16 infants, 20 toddlers and 58 preschoolers. It would require about 24 staff members.
Instead of investing capital resources in the building, which in 2022 had a cost estimate of $15 million, Kids First will explore partnering with employers to share child care costs, providing monthly funding to child care providers for operational supports and assessing opportunities to expand capacity at existing sites. It will also work with a consultant to evaluate early childhood teacher housing needs and identify potential solutions.
“I think sometimes we do studies and they give us answers we already know, but in this situation, this is a different outcome than we thought even a few years ago,” Councilor Christine Benedetti said.
The proposed programs were not fully fleshed out (Kids First wanted the green light from councilors before moving forward). But councilors liked the ideas and wanted to learn more.
A business voucher program could offer support to employees who work in the city of Aspen but who live down valley and want to put their children through child care where they live. City Manager Pete Strecker said the city could partner with city employers to offer vouchers to their employees to pay for downvalley child care, especially because the existing Kids First scholarships and other subsidies apply only to child care within Pitkin County.
Most councilors supported exploring housing needs and opportunities for early childhood educators. Councilor Sam Rose suggested using the lot intended for the child care center for housing instead.
But Councilor Bill Guth said the city should look at how to prioritize those educators in the city’s upcoming Lumberyard affordable housing project, rather than investigating new housing options.
“This is the biggest housing initiative, particularly rental housing initiative, we’ve ever done in the city, it’s going to increase the population of Aspen by 10% plus or minus,” Guth said. “I don’t think we should be talking about creating more housing on top of that, I think we should be talking about how to use that housing most effectively.”
The Burlingame early childhood education center project’s land use entitlements are valid through 2034. City council’s decision to defer construction allows the city to revisit the project in the next eight years if child care needs change in that time.
