VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — A new Armed Services YMCA Child Development Center is coming to Virginia Beach, offering childcare exclusively to military families in a region identified as one of the areas most in need of military childcare in the country.
The 40,000-square-foot facility, located off Rosemont Road just south of I-264, is set to open in October. It will have capacity for 216 children, starting from infants and divided into rooms by age group. The cost of care will be tied to the rank and income of the parents.
The ribbon cutting took place Tuesday, with Under Secretary of War for Personnel and Readiness Anthony Tata — a Hampton Roads native — returning to his hometown for the ceremony. Mayor Bobby Dyer and Commander of Navy Region Mid-Atlantic, Rear Admiral Stephen Barnett.
"If the war fighter knows that their child is taken care of in a facility like this that's gold-plated and super high standards with great staff, that war fighter is going to be able to focus on their mission better," Tata said.
The 216 slots will draw from an ever-growing wait list of military families seeking childcare in the region.
"The secretary (Pete Hegseth), in particular, has charged us to move very quickly on all of these things and so we are," Tata said.
The Virginia Beach center is the third child development center built through a partnership initialized in 2024 between the Armed Services YMCA and the Department of War.
"This is the third child development center that we've partnered with the Department of War to put together. We've got one in DC, one in Norfolk and one here," Armed Services YMCA CEO Vice Adm. (Ret.) William French said.
All three centers were built and made operational within two and a half years. This latest location required gutting an old office building owned by The Runnymede Corporation, which also partnered with Armed Services YMCA on its Norfolk location near Robin Hood Road.
"Their choice to lease the whole building provided far more flexibility in the layout and design process and let them create a secure facility with everything they needed. It also gives spouses and partners the flexibility to take jobs across the community, which strengthens our local economy," said Runnymede CEO Garrett Berger in a statement to News 3.
French said these latest builds were quicker than the traditional process of building a daycare on a military base, which could have taken around seven years.
The opening comes months after a Government Accountability Office report named Norfolk one of five areas in the country most in need of military childcare.
French said he believes the model of quickly building childcare facilities can be expanded.
"Whether we expand it here and go into Chesapeake or something like that, or we take this model and scale it up and address this in multiple different locations," French said.
To learn more about the new facility and how to get on the wait list for military childcare, click HERE.
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