Day care center planned for Naperville office complex

A developer wants to put a day care center within a Naperville office campus along River Road.

Plans originally called for the development of six single-story office buildings. Four of the six buildings have been constructed in the River Woods office campus.

“However, based on the state of the commercial real estate market and office downsizing, an office use is no longer a viable use for the subject property,” Eric Prechtel, an attorney representing the developer, recently told Naperville planning and zoning commissioners.

“This is also demonstrated by the fact that the property has sat vacant for the last 16 years,” Prechtel added.

BHC Construction is asking the city for approval of a major change to the planned unit development and a conditional use for the construction and operation of a roughly 14,000-square-foot day care center on an undeveloped parcel near the StoryPoint Naperville assisted living complex.

Prechtel said the new facility will be known as the Cypress School, a start-up early childcare center that will offer full-time, part-time and summer camp options.

The school is designed to care for and educate children from infants to school-age, and can accommodate 200 children throughout the day, Naperville Community Planner Anna Franco said.

Hours of operation generally would be from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., which is consistent with other day care facilities in Naperville, she said.

Parents will be required to park their cars and go into the building to drop off and pick up children, and arrivals and departures will be interspersed throughout the day, Franco said.

“So the school says that they do not anticipate a high volume of cars parking in the lot at any given time,” she said.

The architecture of the proposed building matches the Prairie-style design of the existing buildings on the campus, Franco said, and will include a roughly 5,200-square-foot fenced-in playground area.