DECATUR – The family of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church has been hard at work over the past year and a half to create a new permanent home for St. Paul’s Early Learning Center (ELC).
The center was once located within the church while it was on Wood Street, and most recently, it shared classroom spaces at St. Paul’s current location on Bachrach Court. Now, the ELC is located in the newly developed 14,283 square foot facility inside of the 136,000 square foot St. Paul’s complex.
St. Paul’s early education program started in the 1980’s with just a half day of preschool for 3 and 4-year-old children. The church later expanded to the Early Learning Center in 1998 at Wood Street.
The ELC moved into the shared classroom spaces in 1993.
As part of St. Paul’s next phase construction, they partnered with BLDD Architects and O’Shea Builders to break ground in August 2015 on the current project. Several other pieces of the project were completed in mid-November.
This new facility will consist of seven classrooms that serve children from six weeks old to twelve years old through day care, preschool and school-age programs.
The new classrooms surround a large indoor open play space. The space also contains a dining area with a kitchen. Each classroom will have access to a restroom. Children will also have access to an outdoor play area.
In addition, 12,715 square feet of space on the second level of the building is available to develop should the need arise.
The church and ELC staff, along with City of Decatur leaders and the Greater Decatur Chamber of Commerce, plan to celebrate the official opening of the facility with a ribbon cutting ceremony and open house on Thursday, January 5 at 10 AM within the new ELC Indoor Play Space.
