Base leadership, child development professionals and the Fort Bragg community all gathered today to celebrate the groundbreaking of a new 37,300 square-foot Child Development Center (CDC) planned for Rhine Road beside Irwin Intermediate School on Fort Bragg.
The new CDC facility is being built to address the growing waitlist of children on base needing childcare. According to Fort Bragg officials, the wait list can take months to progress through and normally averages about 600-700 children.
“We have over 1000 on the waiting list, total. I can tell you that the Garrison recognized this as a whole, and they're working on additional plans to help us in that arena, so that we can have the growth that our families [are] so much in need of,” shared Margaret Lilly, chief of Fort Bragg’s Child and Youth Services.
The project will be constructed by Raleigh based firm CooperTacia General Contractors and design and construction supervised by the US Army Corps of Engineers– Savannah District. According to CooperTacia, the state-of-the-art facility will include modern classrooms, dedicated outdoor play areas and specialized features designed to support early childhood development.
The new facility is considered a Large Spec CDC and will be able to take on 338 children under the age of six-years old.
“This new facility will be the largest CDC on post,” shared Fort Bragg Garrison Commander Col. K. "Chad" Mixon. “This new CDC will help a lot with our families, and it will also help reduce the strain on the local civilian child care facilities, giving some families an on post option. One of the Garrison’s enduring priorities is quality of life for our soldiers and their families, and one of the challenges our families face is access to childcare. Today's ceremony is proof of our commitment to addressing this challenge.”
Planning for this project began in 2019 and the current timeline expects construction for this facility to be completed in 2028.
“The need has just gotten louder. The struggle has always been there, it's just that it became a louder pitch. This is just one of [many developments] that is expected to come up here on the installation,” Lilly shared about additional projects in the works.
Fort Bragg Public Affairs officials confirmed that an additional Child Development Center is in the works with an anticipated opening set in 2034.
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