Bond Helps Southborough Nonprofit Expand
The New England Center for Children was founded 35 years ago with six employees. Today, the Southborough-based educational and housing services provider for children with autism spectrum disorder has 800.
NECC offers daycare services to its employees, but was running out of space as it grew over the years, explained CFO Michael Downey.
Now, thanks to a $12-million bond from the quasi-public agency MassDevelopment, the center will build a 10,000-square-foot daycare center for its employees' families.
"We've outgrown the existing facility," Downey said.
Ground will be broken in the next few months for the new building, which is about double the size of the current daycare space.
Savings Enable Mission
The daycare building is only going to cost around $2 million. The remaining $10 million of the bond will go toward refinancing the center's existing debt for facilities built over the past decade, Downey said.
The center is now paying a little over 2 percent in interest, compared to 6 percent before it refinanced. The savings are substantial, even considering the additional net borrowing of $2 million.
"It'll save us a little over a little over a quarter million a year in interest," Downey said.
The project is expected to generate 10 permanent new jobs, according to MassDevelopment.
Approximately 220 children attend school at NECC, where classes run six days a week. About half of those students live in one of the center's 15 group homes, which are located in Ashland, Framingham, Marlborough and Westborough.
The typical student attends NECC because public schools cannot adequately serve them, Downey said.
NECC also runs programs in public schools in Massachusetts and New Hampshire for students with autism. NECC provides a teacher and curriculum for the so-called "partner classrooms," of which there are 17.
The center brought in $56.7 million in revenue in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2011.
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