ANN ARBOR—The University of Michigan will replace the Towsley Center for Children with a new facility that will broaden the University’s capacity for child care. The building design was approved today (Oct. 25) by the Board of Regents.

The new structure will combine the U-M Children’s Center for Working Families and Pound House?both built before 1915?into a single center. The building replacement project is a result of the U-M Child Care Initiative, begun in 2005 by President Mary Sue Coleman to provide more full-time child care on campus, develop new infant and toddler care programs and improve University facilities for early childhood education and care.

“High quality on-campus child care is vital for the recruitment and retention of faculty and staff, and to our commitment to work/life balance,” said Laurita Thomas, associate vice president for human resources. The University’s current child care centers are operating at maximum capacity according to accreditation guidelines, Thomas says.

A budget of $8 million for the 22,500-square foot facility was approved by the regents in April along with authorization to retain the architectural firm Integrated Design Solutions LLC to design the facility.

Three basic concerns guided the conceptual design, according to David W. Osler, the project’s design architect and consultant to Integrated Design Solutions.

“The new facility needs to have twice the capacity of the original, be situated on the same neighborhood site, and maintain the existing outdoor play areas,” Osler said. “We realized that the building must be multistory while maintaining architecture that is residential in scale and character so that it is inviting and familiar in its form, detail and landscaping.”

The slate-like shingle roof is designed with a steep pitch to enable a small future expansion within the proposed structure, said Osler, and a warm and safe entry area for parents to drop off children is included in the plans.

“The new space provides for infant care, child development research and the care of children with special needs in a barrier-free environment,” said Jennie McAlpine, director of the Work/Life Resources Program. “Great care went into developing a new facility that will meet our current needs but also have the potential to grow and adjust as needs change in the future. This promises to open doors for many new possibilities, including the flexibility to expand our capacity for infant and toddler care.”

Groundbreaking is planned for June 2008. Child care and educational programs for enrolled children will continue in an off-site location during the construction period.

The center is named for Margaret Towsley, a local philanthropist who ran a nursery on the site for more than 50 years before donating it to the University. Towsley died in 1994. The foundation bearing her name and that of her husband, pediatrician Harry Towsley, has been a generous contributor to the University and the Ann Arbor community.