$500

The small South Dakota community of Summit is looking for the right person to bring child care back to town, and it's sweetening the deal with a below-market lease on a facility built specifically for the job. The Town of Summit owns a roughly 2,900-square-foot building at 203 Walnut Street that was purpose-built in 2017 to house a daycare. The space, which most recently operated as Sprouts Daycare, has sat empty for about a year. Town leaders are now offering it for lease to a qualified operator for $500 a month under a 12-month rental agreement, a rate they say is intentionally set low to attract someone willing to reopen it. The facility was licensed for up to 30 children and includes furnished classrooms and a fenced outdoor play area, ready for a new operator to move in. Local organizers estimate current demand in the immediate area at 8 to 12 children, but Summit's location (within 23 to 30 miles of Watertown, Webster, Sisseton and Milbank) gives an operator a much wider pool to draw from, since families across the region are known to search within a 30-mile radius for child care. An approved operator would need to hold a South Dakota daycare license, carry daycare liability insurance and pass a background check through the Town of Summit. A local nonprofit, Summit Area Economic Growth, has also identified a potential $1,000 start-up grant opportunity to help a new operator get established.