By Wendy Giroux

Demand for preschool and daycare spots on the Island may grow even more in the coming months, if the Big Bird Center has to close its doors.

Housed at the Boys & Girls Club for the past 17 years, Big Bird’s owner and director, Lili Solis, is scrambling to find a new space she can afford.

Until a year ago, Solis operated at the club without a lease. Last spring, she was asked to sign a lease and told that she would have to move out by this April.

“I was hoping they were going to change their minds, but I have to let the parents know,” Solis said.

She has been looking into spaces at commercial buildings and churches around the Island, but the cheapest rent she has been able to find was about $2,000 — compared to the $1,200 she has paid at the club.

“I don’t really know what I’m going to do, because I’m going to lose my clientele,” she said. “I live in Bellevue and I would have to start again.”

Some parents have already taken their children elsewhere. Solis said she gets calls most days asking whether she has space available, but she has to tell them that she may be closing in April.

“I have done a lot of service for the people of Mercer Island, and … I took welfare mothers because I feel that those mothers deserve help, too,” she said. “I have always felt that I am there to help everyone.”

Big Bird also accepts children who aren’t potty-trained, whereas many daycares have strict age limits or simply don’t accept children until they are potty-trained, Solis said.

The center has six employees, and is licensed to care for 36 children, with eight slots for infants. Its hours are 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., designed to help working parents’ schedules, she said.

In addition to Big Bird Center, Bellevue Community College’s Learning Lab also rents space at the Boys and Girls Club.

Parent Instructor Judy Witmer said the Learning Lab was told last year that they would have to be out in June. Now, however, with the club waiting on an answer from the school district, that date seems to be in limbo.

The Learning Lab is a co-op with three classes for children ages 3, 4 and 5. The rent is $600 a month for a smaller space than Big Bird; Boys & Girls Club programs are run in the same space in the afternoons, Witmer said.

Boys and Girls Club Executive Director Todd Bale said the club simply needs Big Bird’s space for its own before- and after-school care programs.

“I have an obligation to our own childcare, ages 5 to 18, who are currently cooped up” in other spaces, Bale said. “Even though I’m empathetic … our primary mission is to serve kids 5 to 18 — schoolage kids.”

Last year, Little Acorn, Patti’s Play Center and Pixie Hill preschools had to move out of a building at the community center site in order for demolition and construction to proceed. City staff members worked with the owners to help them find contact churches and other building owners on the Island to find new locations. Two were able to move into the school district’s North Mercer building near Youth Theatre Northwest, and the third moved to Emmanuel Episcopal Church.

City officials have said they will offer those rental spaces to the three preschools if they choose to return once construction is complete.

Parent Margaret McCormick’s two boys, ages 3 and 5, go to Big Bird. McCormick is in the midst of trying to find spots for her boys elsewhere, as well as helping to get the word out about the situation in hopes that something can be done. She and other parents sent a letter the Boys & Girls Club officials asking them to reconsider their decision or at least to add space for small children into their plans for a new facility. They also have contacted City Council members asking if there’s anything they can do to help.

So far, McCormick’s search for other daycare has been fruitless, and she guesses she likely will end up taking the boys off-Island for care.

“It’s just very sad,” she said. “I liked them (Big Bird) a lot. What’s critical to us for childcare is that our kids are loved. … It’s going to be really hard on my kids.”

Stowe Sprague, who has one child at Big Bird, also belongs to the Mercer Island Preschool Association.

“The Island has had a really, really wonderful tradition of working as a team,” Sprague said.

She and a team of other MIPA members are working together to try to continue in that vein to address the larger issue of overall needs for more daycare, preschool and play space on the Island.

“There’s practically zero spaces in daycare right now,” Sprague said. “Parents are scrambling and there’s nothing; there’s no openings.”