Council OKs day care plan
New facility would be at Marlborough Hill development
MARLBOROUGH – The Marlborough Hills mixed-use development will soon be home to a new 10,000-square-foot day care center, as the City Council Monday signed off on a site plan permit for construction.
Over the summer, Mammoth Development Co. LLC filed plans with the city to build a new Learning Experience Child Development Center on Simarano Drive at the Marlborough Hills campus, which combines offices, shops, apartment homes and a new Hilton Garden Inn hotel.
The Learning Experience Child Development Center, which operates over 150 schools across the country, will feature outdoor playgrounds and classrooms that will house close to 180 children, Michael Coffman, project manager, told the Urban Affairs Committee last month.
Coffman said last month children as young as a few months old to age seven are eligible to attend.
The center will have 40 parking spaces, according to plans filed with the city. Coffman told Urban Affairs Committee members there are no standard drop-off and pick-up times. Most students would be dropped off between 6:30 a.m. and 9 a.m., while parents typically pick up their children between noon and 6:30 p.m., he said.
With GE Healthcare Life Sciences and Quest Diagnostics already located at Marlborough Hills and other businesses likely to come in the future, City Councilor Joseph Delano said the Learning Experience Child Development Center will provide a useful amenity to employees working at those companies and "be quite well received in that area."
"It seems like a great usage," said Delano.
Employees at the businesses at Marlborough Hills may soon have an outdoor outlet for exercise during the workday, as the City Council also approved plans for a trail around the development Monday.
The proposed trail will incorporate internal roadways, city sidewalks and a stone dust path, William Park, a civil engineer with Symmes, Maini & Associates, told the Open Space Committee last week.
The trail will loop around the 750,000-square-foot development and link with the city’s 26.2-mile Panther Trail, which will circle the city, connecting existing parks and trails.
"It's very exciting to see," said City Councilor Mark Oram. "It's going to be a great asset to the city."
The Conservation Commission is slated to discuss the trail proposal Thursday night. Officials with Atlantic Management, which is developing Marlborough Hills, hope to begin work on the trail this fall.
Jeff Malachowski can be reached at 508-490-7466 or jmalachowski@wickedlocal.com. Follow him on Twitter @JmalachowskiMW.