By: K. Michelle Moran | Grosse Pointe Times | Published January 27, 2026
GROSSE POINTE FARMS — Despite what residents and officials alike acknowledge is a need for more child care in the area, it doesn’t appear that an early child care center will be coming to the Hill anytime soon.
After it was clear there wasn’t enough support around the council table, Eig14t Commercial Real Estate, the developers behind a proposed child care facility at 107 Kercheval Ave. — the site of the shuttered Rite Aid store and pharmacy — withdrew their request for preliminary site plan approval at a Jan. 12 Grosse Pointe Farms City Council meeting.
The developers wanted to bring the London-based N Family Club — also known as the N Family School — to the Pointes. The Farms site would have been the first time this program was operating in the United States.
As the developers explained to the council, the N Family School “is a UK-based, high-end nursery group founded in 2017, focusing on holistic early years education for children aged 0 to 5, emphasizing experiential, play-based learning, strong family involvement and preparing kids for school using unique methods like ‘The N Approach,’ blending academic readiness with social-emotional skills in supportive, beautifully designed environments.”
Eig14t CEO Reed Fenton said the food served is organic and made from scratch, and they stress natural and simple play. Eig14t has offices in Chicago and Berkley.
“They are the highest-end provider in London,” Fenton said.
Their proposal called for renovating the Rite Aid building and adding a second floor of about 6,800 square feet to a structure whose first floor is roughly 10,180 square feet. The school would have a capacity of 179 students and would feature a rooftop play garden of about 1,217 square feet.
Eig14t Development Manager Brad Egan said they had developed more than 180 projects in over 30 states.
“A large portion of that is child care,” Egan said. “We consider ourselves an expert in the field.”
Fenton said they’re the largest early education builder in the country and they’ve worked with the majority of national child care operators.
Parents for years have been clamoring for more day care, not only in the Farms, but across the east side in general. Working families say options are scarce, and the developers confirmed that the Grosse Pointe area has extreme demand for day care. According to their findings, there are 2,297 children of day care age in the community, but only one center in the Pointes that only has spaces for 83 children.
Farms resident Emily Kiggins said it was “absolutely insane the steps I had to take” to find child care for a baby, which included sleeping out “in a blizzard” to get a good place in line to register for one location.
“We desperately need all-day child care for working families. … You can’t keep pushing off a need that is so dire,” Kiggins said.
She said the lack of available child care runs counter to the community’s expressed desire to attract more young families.
“We’re in a child care desert,” said Abbie Jacobs, of Grosse Pointe Woods.
Jacobs said she and her husband — who work from home — had to commute to downtown Detroit for five years so their children would have day care, because they couldn’t find anything closer to home.
“Problems as dire as this require solutions,” Jacobs said. “It would be a travesty to turn it down.”
Farms resident Cristina Agnello said that when she was pregnant seven years ago, she ended up on a wait list at a day care in Detroit. Until she could get her daughter enrolled there, she had to find alternative care for her.
“I’m a public school teacher. … My salary went to a nanny so we could stay in this community,” Agnello said.
She had questions for city officials.
“If not there, where?” Agnello asked. “If not now, when?”
Hill business owners agreed that additional day care is needed but said the Hill wasn’t the right place for it.
Fred Fresard, an attorney whose firm — Klein, Thomas, Lee and Fresard — occupies the top floor of 89 Kercheval Ave., called the proposal “a great idea (but the) wrong location.”
“I do also have concerns with the fact that the Hill is a social district,” said Fresard, who said that the Rite Aid building is between two restaurants that serve alcohol.
Businessman Edward Russell, who said he’s the largest landlord on the Hill, had similar concerns.
“I love the use,” Russell said. “I hate the location.”
Traffic flow was a major concern for him, especially with morning day care drop-off coinciding with drop-off for students at Richard Elementary, which is also on the Hill.
“It’s a mess at those choke points (at McKinley and McMillan roads) in the morning,” Russell said.
The developers said day care parents don’t all drop off their children at the same time — unlike school drop-off — but business owners were still worried about increased traffic at an already busy time.
Also of concern was the request by the developers to use 24 front-row spaces in the city-owned lot behind the building for drop-off and pickup; 12 of these spaces would be designated for use by the day care only from 6 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. weekdays, while the other 12 would be designated for use by the day care 6 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. weekdays.
Russell said he didn’t know of any other Hill business that had ever been allocated front-row parking.
Salvatore Vitale, who has owned Colosseum International Salon and Day Spa on the Hill for the last 30 years, said this parking lot “is busy all day,” countering assertions by the developer that their dedicated parking wouldn’t cause a problem.
“I’ll come in at 8 o’clock in the morning … and that parking lot is jammed,” Vitale said.
Some officials echoed concerns expressed by Hill business owners.
“I would love to see it. … but this is not the location,” City Councilman Joe Ricci said.
City Council members Lev Wood and Sierra Donaven said the proposal wasn’t in keeping with the master plan and land use plan for the Hill.
“We want (the Hill) to stay vibrant,” Donaven said. “No one is saying we don’t want day care … (but) I can’t support something like this being on the Hill.”
The Hill is currently home to a mix of restaurants, offices, medical and retail uses.
Mayor John Gillooly recalled driving back and forth to the Renaissance Center when his own children needed day care.
“There’s no doubt that there’s a need for this,” Gillooly said.
However, he wondered why no representative from the N Family School had made any effort to communicate with the council, either by Zoom or a letter.
Safety was a big concern for officials.
“This is an emotional issue,” City Councilwoman Beth Konrad-Wilberding said. “What would be really irresponsible … is if anyone got hit and we did not do due diligence (with regard to) the traffic patterns.”
With the forthcoming reopening of the Pierson Clinic, Konrad-Wiberding said they expect the need for Hill parking to increase.
With only City Councilman Neil Sroka expressing an intention to vote in favor of the site plan review, the developers withdrew their proposal before a vote.
Farms officials voiced a desire to see a proposal for a different location, but the developers said they haven’t been able to find one that meets their needs, despite looking at multiple potential sites in the last 20 years — including one at 20160 Mack Ave. in Grosse Pointe Woods, where a controversial multi-business development appears to be moving forward.
“We have been looking (for a site in the Pointes) … for 20 years plus,” Egan said. “So, if you turn this down, there will never be a child care coming back here. We are not going to come back here (with an alternative plan).”