Local leaders tout excitement for new early learning center in Intelliplex Park

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Shelbyville is garnering great attention as it prepares to build the Julia and Nicholas Runnebohm Early Learning Center.

The official ground breaking for the facility located in Intelliplex Park on the city’s north side was held Wednesday morning with the expectation it will be open in the fall of 2024.

The nearly 25,000-square-foot facility will provide day care and early learning opportunities for up to 200 children upon its completion.

“It’s going to be a traditional child care but also we have partnerships in place with infant toddler mental health which will help provide some of the emotional and behavior regulation that a lot of kids post COVID are now experiencing,” said Allison Coburn, Executive Director of Early Learning Shelby County. “We are also partnering with Head Start. We have a very big wait list and we want to make sure (we take care of) our citizens who really need access to child care so their parents can go to work or go to school. We will partner with them to open up some more seats.”

The idea for an early learning center was presented as part of Accelerate Rural Indiana’s READI (Regional Economic Acceleration & Development Initiative) grant presentation in 2021. The group known as ARI represents interests in Shelbyville, Shelby County, Rushville, Rush County, Batesville, Greensburg and Decatur County.

ARI was awarded $20 million by the Indiana Economic Development Corporation to be utilized for designated projects. A total of $3 million was set aside for the early learning center in Shelbyville that will sit adjacent to Major Health Partners (MHP) Medical Center.

“Shelby County needs this not only for the young families we have now but for a recruitment tool as well,” said Coburn. “There are some amazing corporations here like MHP and our school corporations and we know statewide, and also nationally, that one of the most effective recruitment tools to community investment is child care.”

With Shelbyville Central Schools’ Golden Bear Preschool and now, the Runnebohm Early Learning Center, Coburn believes there will be a strong learning base in place for children in the community.

“We are very fortunate that we have partnerships with all the school corporations,” said Coburn. “And what we know is, unfortunately we have more kids that need care than what our school corporations can provide. They are trying to expand but we still have a lot of children that need access before they go to kindergarten. We will be continuing to partner with them making sure children that need access, that want access to go to school have a seat.”

With a second READI grant phase underway, ARI is hearing there are more early learning centers being included in statewide presentations.

“We were one of the few applicants to receive full funding for our childcare project. We really are the template now moving into that next READI grant phase,” said Coburn.

The project will be built by Runnebohm Construction, a local company that has been involved in multiple building projects since its inception in 1968 by Nick Runnebohm, for whom the facility is named along with his wife Julia (Judy), who passed away on April 19, 2016.

“I think it means everything,” said Chris King, Executive Vice President of Runnebohm Construction, when asked what the project will mean to the company. “This just meant the world to Judy. Nick has always instilled in us to give back to the community and this is exactly what this is.”

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