PROVIDENCE – Meeting Street and other local officials on Thursday formally cut the ribbon on the nonprofit education center’s new $17 million Mondor Early Childhood Building.
The 29,000-square-foot facility on the local Meeting Street campus will house the organization’s early childhood programming, being a single destination for families with children ages prenatal to 5. The new building will also help Meeting Street increase its capacity to support all families in the prevention of developmental delays in their children, the organization says.
The project was part of $30 million in ongoing renovations at the Eddy Street campus since 2018, Meeting Street says. Funding for the new building was also provided by the family of Ben Mondor, the late former Pawtucket Red Sox owner – and the building’s namesake. Meeting Street officials declined comment as to how much the Mondor family contributed to the project.
The new building includes seven BrightStars-rated classrooms, a young learners’ library, a walk-in family resource center providing no-cost child assessments and family support services, multiple training rooms to offer community workshops, indoor and outdoor play areas and a sensory gymnasium.
“Meeting Street is always evolving to meet the needs of our community,” Meeting Street CEO and President John M. Kelly said in a statement. “The Mondor Building allows our professionals to positively impact a greater number of families during a child’s critical years of development. We are here as a resource for families as well as to our partners across the educational, developmental and philanthropic communities.”
James Bessette is the PBN special projects editor, and also covers the nonprofit and education sectors. You may reach him at Bessette@PBN.com. You may also follow him on X at @James_Bessette.