A large, regional childcare center company won its first step toward construction Monday night as Mebane’s planning board approved a rezoning request that would allow the company to build a large facility on 1.88 acres along South Fifth Street.
Children’s Campus operates three locations currently – two in Chapel Hill and one in Durham – with a total capacity of 500 children.
The Mebane facility is aimed at providing 200 more, increasing the city’s childcare capacity by almost 50 percent.
According to Ryan Gunzel, who made the presentation for Children’s Campus, there are only six current childcare centers in Mebane now, providing space for about 450 children.
While no specific building plans were a part of the presentation, Gunzel said that the Mebane location at 1111 South Fifth Street would be similar to the company’s Westminster Drive location in Chapel Hill, which accommodates 200 children. (See cover photo.)
A neighbor, Ron Williams, raised concerns about a potential underground storage tank on the lot that would need to be removed.
Planning board chairman Judy Taylor also wanted to know what other office and institutional types of businesses could be located at the site if for any reason the childcare option fell through. Among those eligible, according to development director Ashley Ownbey, would be educational institutions, medical offices, banks or other financial institutions, or businesses providing personal services.
The planning board approved the rezoning request for office and institutional use by a unanimous 7-0 vote. Voting in favor were Colin Cannell, William Chapman, Dalton Mack, Gale Pettiford, David Scott, Susan Semonite, and chairman Judy Taylor; absent were Keith Hoover and Edward Tulauskas.
The rezoning request is likely to be heard by the city council at its January 5, 2026 meeting.
Gunzel told the newspaper after the meeting that the company’s purchase of the property, expected by March, is dependent on the rezoning approval, and that construction could start as soon as about six months after that.
