Jun. 27—Canadian-based child care giant BrightPath is planning an expansion of its sprawling daycare center network into Arizona with seven facilities across the Valley in 2024.
The expansion plans include two proposed BrightPath locations in Mesa and one each in Gilbert and Queen Creek.
The company has over 140 locations across Canada and the U.S. with daycare centers currently in New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Delaware, Ohio and Kentucky, according to documents submitted to the City of Mesa.
When the company was sold to a U.K. child care company in 2017, the Toronto Star described BrightPath as "big-box child care."
BrightPath describes itself on its website as "a world-class and innovative provider of early childhood education that follows a unique curriculum."
The company's Mesa locations are planned for Val Vista Drive and Brown Road in the Citrus Sub-Area west of Falcon Field, and Guadalupe and Signal Butte in southeast Mesa.
The facility planned for Val Vista would have 14 classrooms with a capacity to hold 240 children.
The Val Vista location was the first to face a public hearing during a Design Review Board meeting June 13 and it did not go well for the BrightPath. Board members demanded the company return to the drawing board to develop a more suitable design for the area.
The board's reaction suggested that as BrightPath expands into the Valley, the company may need to adapt its designs more radically to match the aesthetics of local communities.
That was one of the Design Review Board's messages to BrightPath's architect during the hearing as multiple board members criticized the Val Vista facility's look.
They said the building needed to blend better with the architectural styles current in Arizona as well as the unique features of the city's Citrus Sub-Area.
That district has special design guidelines intended to preserve the historical citrus-grove character of the area and maintain the feel of a low-density suburban neighborhood.
The Citrus Sub-Area features some of Mesa's grandest homes, with large residences spread on multi-acre estates.
"In my mind, putting a two-story primarily stucco building on this corner ... feels like it just doesn't work," said board Chair Tanner Green.
Green said the building's shape and structure was wrong for the area and that it should "address" the corner of the intersection and nod somehow to the neighborhood's character.
The architect for BrightPath, who said he lives in New Jersey and has designed 250 daycares around the country, also got an earful from two residents who live near the proposed facility.