Park City Municipal searched for a new daycare provider after the Park City Co-op Preschool announced it was closing its location in the library earlier this year.
The council received four proposals and chose PC Tots which will now use the space to care for 20 children ages 3 to 5.
Under the contract approved by the Park City Council Thursday, PC Tots is getting its third facility at a steep discount of $120 a year.
Park City Councilmember Becca Gerber said that’s because the nonprofit is helping to increase the much-needed child care capacity in the community.
“It is a significant subsidy from the city,” Gerber said. “It’s a $35,000 subsidy every year, so over 10 years that will be over $350,000 in subsidies that the city is providing to PC Tots in this reduced rent.”
Even with the reduced rent, PC Tots board member Tony Tyler said running the preschool won’t be cheap.
“We’re anticipating that this facility will require roughly $112,000 of subsidy on PC Tots’ side, and that’s with a zero-cost lease effectively,” Tyler said.
The city said it was hoping to use the space for infant care. But PC Tots Executive Director Sue Banerjee said the area on the library’s third floor doesn’t meet the required safety standards for children ages 0 to 2.
“When we do emergency drills at PC Tots, since we’re on the first floor, we can evacuate infants by putting them in a crib, and we can just roll the crib out," Banerjee said. "That’s not only efficient, but safe. In this space, because there’s an elevator and there’s stairs, it would be very difficult for one teacher to evacuate four babies. And so from a safety and efficiency perspective, in an emergency situation, it probably wouldn’t make sense to have infants there.”
Banerjee added that the new center will allow them to care for two to four more infants at PC Tots’ other locations.
The contract with the city requires 10 of the 20 preschoolers to be children of Park City Municipal employees. The lease is two years with two potential extensions allowing up to 10 years total.
PC Tots will operate in the new space five days a week, with the goal to open in November.
