It may not be the largest engine of economic development ever created, but this morning’s ribbon cutting for the Learning Experience, a new 10,000-square-foot day-care center sited on the formerly vacant Route 34 Connector brought out city officials, media types, a bounty of cared-for children and Bubbles the Elephant (pictured).
Opened for business two weeks ago, the New Haven Learning Experience is the second franchise location for owners Dee and Chantal Patel (their first is in Cromwell). When fully operational it will generate 35 full-time-equivalent jobs, say the Patels (pictured), the most important of which is caring for some 140 children ages six weeks to eight years.
The Florida-based TLE’s curriculum is based on three dimensions of care: cognitive, physical and social — or “learn, play and grow.”
According to New Haven Mayor Toni Harp, the Learning Experience’s opening, almost five years in the works, represents the latest successful initiative to reunify previously divided sections of the city. The parcel at 520 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard (a/k/a the Route 34 Connector) also houses a Rite Aid pharmacy on land acquired from the state.
Development of the parcel and construction of the facility was subcontracted to 30 percent minority-owned enterprises, according to Harp, which themselves employed approximately 65 percent minority workers.
