BRUNSWICK

Children have returned to a building at the former Brunswick Naval Air Station that once housed classrooms for military kids, as Family Focus started daycare operations on Tuesday at the former base.

“This is exciting times for Family Focus, because this is a huge expansion,” said Family Focus Executive Director Robert Parlin.

Buildings 21 and 26 at the former base at one time hosted child care for military families, and were some of the last facilities to close when the Navy left in 2011.

The first building opened with 30 children enrolled in three classrooms for infant, toddler and preschool-aged children, according to Parlin.

A fourth classroom will open this fall, with a fifth slated to open early next year.

Up to 62 children may attend daycare there within the next six months, said Parlin.

The facility also brought nine new jobs to the area, said Parlin, with another five full-time positions expected once the other classrooms open.

The second building is expected to open in the fall of 2015, which will house administrative offices, office space for therapists, a gymnasium to help children with their motor skills, and possibly a before-and-after school program.

The non-profit Family Focus will continue to operate its Bath location at Davenport Circle as well as its facilities on the former base.

It also provides care for school-aged children in Brunswick, Bowdoinham, Harpswell, and Topsham.

“We did our homework several years ago when we began researching the project,” Parlin said, which showed that the Brunswick area was “primed” for another childcare facility.

There isn’t much turnover in childcare, and so there are waiting lists at the Bath and Water Street daycares, licensed at 50 children each.

“Both of those child care facilities are licensed for 50 children each,” Parlin said. “Both of them are at capacity now.”

Twenty families are waiting to get into the Water Street facility, said Parlin.

The need for childcare at the former base is also indicative of the redevelopment of the former base. Student enrollment at Southern Maine Community College continues to grow. Familiar local businesses, including Wild Oats Bakery — which opened its Brunswick Landing location this week — as well as Frosty’s Donuts are opening locations on the former base.

TechPlace, a shared manufacturing work space developed by the Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority, is slated to open this fall.

Family Focus’s center is the second childcare facility at the former base. Providence Service Corp. of Maine, a behavioral health provider serving children and their families struggling with mental health issues, autism and developmental disabilities, also provides child care and preschool services to typically developing children, as well as children identified with developmental delays.

“With the expansion of Brunswick Landing, and the new businesses here, there seems to be a huge demand for child care,” Parlin said, adding that several parents who work at Brunswick Landing businesses have been happy to have daycare close at hand.

The Navy first agreed to give the nonprofit Family Focus the two buildings on 2.5 acres in 2007 as a “public benefit conveyance” — a type of property transfer in which entities receive former base property at no acquisition cost — in anticipation of the base’s closure years later.

Family Focus received ownership of the property on Jan. 28.

Under the terms of the conveyance, the buildings must remain as childcare facilities for the next 30 years.

Operations at the new facility on the former base are running 4-5 months ahead of schedule, said Parlin.

jswinconeck@timesrecord.com