MARSHALL — A local child care provider is planning to open a new day care center in Minneota, and on Tuesday Lyon County commissioners voiced their support for the project.

Commissioners heard from Minneota City Administrator Robert Vidoloff about a public-private partnership between Minneota and Jamie Gillund, owner of the Little Explorers child care center in Ghent.

“We’ve got a very exciting project that’s popping up here,” Vidoloff said. “The overall project is a $1.5 million project for a 100-child day care with 20 full-time (employees).”

Gillund and the city of Minneota were looking for a letter of support for the project to help with applying for grant funding from the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development.

Little Explorers has done well at its Ghent location, but Gillund was looking at expanding, partly to be able to accommodate more children, Vidoloff said.

“It’s designed for about 60 kids, and she’s got a waiting list of about 70,” he said of Little Explorers. “And so she wants to start another day care. She was researching sites, and the city of Minneota wants to have a day care. It’s one of the things that we hear from our residents quite a bit.”

On top of the general need for child care services in the area, several of Minneota’s current child care providers are nearing or have already reached retirement age, Vidoloff said.

Gillund approached the city of Minneota about a possible public-private partnership to start a second child care center.

“The city went back, and we looked at, we have a residential addition on the north side,” Vidoloff said. “We developed that up right before COVID, but COVID took some of the development wind out of our sails. So we have some lots there.”

As part of the partnership, two lots valued at a total of $90,000 would be sold to the Minneota Economic Development Aauthority. In turn, the EDA would sell the lots to Gillund for $1 to help with start-up costs for a child care center, Vidoloff said. In addition, the EDA would be providing grant funds to help with initial startup and engineering costs.

Based on the research Gillund did for the project, she was confident there was at least a demand for a child care center built to serve 100 children in the Minneota area. She and the city would be applying for $300,000 in state grant funding to help with the project, Vidoloff said.

“We’re going to follow how Luverne did their grant request, and we’ll purchase furniture, fixings and equipment,” he said.

Vidoloff said they were also seeking a letter of support from the county, and possibly additional grant funding from the county.

“I’m fully in support of this letter,” said Commissioner Rick Anderson. Anderson said he also thought that the child care project could be an economic development project for the county.

“We’ve heard about the shortage of day care for a few years now. And that’s a big topic all over the state,” said Commissioner Gary Crowley. “With funding, I don’t know where we’re at on that. We have to have more discussion by the board. I know we’re fully in support of this project.”

Depending on whether the state grant funding comes in, the county could possibly find a way to partner in the project, said Lyon County Administrator Loren Stomberg.

Commissioners voted unanimously to sign a letter of support for the new day care project.