Iowa City board approves Reach for Your Potential expansion at 1839 and 1849 B Street

The Iowa City Board of Adjustment at its March meeting approved a special exception allowing Reach for Your Potential to expand a daycare operation at 1839 and 1849 B Street and to serve up to 140 children, subject to several staff-recommended conditions including improvement of the alley between the property and Fifth Avenue.

City planning staff told the board the applicant proposes to combine the previously authorized daycare at 1839 B Street with an adjacent, newly purchased single-family house at 1849 B Street to provide additional indoor space and reorganized classrooms. "The day care intends to accommodate up to 140 children," Parker Walsh, associate planner, said during the staff report. Walsh said the property contains about 6,800 square feet of interior floor area usable for daycare purposes (a theoretical capacity of up to 196 children under the code's 35 square feet-per-child interior requirement), and that the applicant plans a roughly 3,600-square-foot addition and a new outdoor play area of about 4,100 square feet.

Nut graf: The expansion responds in part to the announced closure of another East Side facility and a recent state grant that allowed Reach for Your Potential to accept children and staff from the closing…