MARSHALL — There’s a serious shortage of child care in Marshall and surrounding areas, Marshall Economic Development Authority Director Lauren Deutz said this week. To help address child care needs, the EDA is looking at possible solutions including building an incubator for future child care providers.

During a presentation to the Marshall City Council on Tuesday, Deutz said the EDA is exploring possible options like building a “child care house,” a city-owned facility that could offer a child care provider a place to start out.

“This would be an opportunity to look at what our situation is here, if we are ready for something like this,” Deutz told council members.

Last year, the Marshall EDA went through a strategic planning process for child care needs, Deutz said.

“Through that process we discovered that we had 418 child care spots here in Marshall, and we needed an additional 530 spots,” she said. “Those numbers were pretty scary for us.”

The planning study found that a total of 530 child care spots were needed in Marshall’s ZIP code for infants and children up to five years old. The plan also took a look at child care needs in the Marshall Public School District, and within Lyon County. A total of 496 spots were needed within the Marshall school district, and 647 spots were needed in Lyon County.

“Communities across Minnesota, and really across the country, are trying to tackle this issue as well. This is not a Marshall issue, this is not a Minnesota issue. It’s everywhere,” Deutz said.

The EDA board recently voted to partner with Business of Child Care, a Bloomington-based organization that looks at helping communities solve child care challenges. Deutz said one idea Business of Child Care came up with was possibly building a “child care house.”

“They’ve built one of these in Mapleton, Minnesota,” Deutz said. “It’s a residential-scale home that is used for child care. It would be city-owned.”

“It’s an 800 square-foot house. But the beauty of the house is that it’s license-ready, so it has all the standards that the state would require for a child care facility,” she said. “In addition to that, they would provide support to the provider for the first year.”

Deutz said the hope would be that the child care provider would eventually be able to move on to their own space, and then the child care house would open up for another potential provider.

Deutz said the EDA board approved a Phase 1 process to explore the idea.

“That would just be to develop a plan,” she said.

There could be other possibilities that come out of the process instead of a child care house. Deutz said Business of Child Care would also help get the EDA connected with funding opportunities if they chose to move forward.

Deutz said the Marshall EDA is also actively working on other child care initiatives. One initiative was a “child care 101” training, which also helped the EDA build a list of possible child care providers who might be able to use space like a child care house.

The EDA is also partnering with Southwest Initiative Foundation for a child care training and networking event for providers this February, Deutz said.