203 Walnut St, Summit, SD 57266

Property Description

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.