Stealing the show with their plastic shovels and overalls, preschoolers dug into a mound of sand last week on the future site of a $2.6 million child care center in the Hacienda Business Park. Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy, Vice Mayor Frank Brandes, Assemblyman Bill Baker, R-Danville, and state Senator Bill Lockyer, D-San Leandro, assisted in the ground breaking of the Hacienda Child Development Center.

As the children cut into the sand hill, an architect's scale model of what is believed to be the first child care center of its kind in the nation rested on its peak.

Hacienda co-developers Joe Callahan and Roger Gage said that they feel affordable child care has become the most important issue facing two-paycheck families.

"Hacienda has a responsibility to is community," said Gage, general manager for The Prudential Insurance Company of America. "We want to make sure that many of the day-to-day services needed by the thousands of employees coming into the park are offered on-site, so we do not adversely impact the community."

According to the International Child Resource Institute in Berkeley, there are presently only 100 companies with onsite child care in the nation. "Never before has such a comprehensive, high-quality child care concept been put under one roof," said Jeanne Nelson, director of child resources at ICRI and a consultant for the Hacienda Child Development Center.

The 17,000-square foot facility on Chabot Drive will accommodate 200 children, from infancy to five years old. For every eight children, there will be one instructor as compared to most child care centers with a 12-1 ratio. For toddlers and infants, there will be a 4-1 ratio.

"What makes us most proud of the Child Development Center is the thought and sensitivity that went into the. planning," said developer Joe Callahan.

"We approached it like everything else here at Hacienda; we planned it to be the very best. And if there are no existing models that satisfy us, then we invent a facility that will," he said. Callahan's four-year-old son, Todd, led the pint-sized diggers who wore little plastic hardhats as they enthusiastically plunged into the mound with their shovels.

Other children taking part in the ceremonies were Holly Swift, daughter of Planning Director Brian Swift; Evan MacDonald, son of City Attorney Peter MacDonald; and Lindsay Gage, daughter of Prudential General Manager Roger Gage. Callahan-Pentz provided the 1.88 acre site for the center and Prudential is financing the project which is scheduled to open next June. The facility will be built in five modules. Four will be subdivided into eight 25-children sections. Each module will include a clubhouse, a library, a kitchen with eating facilities, a small laundry and specially sized furniture.

The fifth module will house administrative staff which will feature a lounge, locker room with showers and outdoor patio. In addition, the center will include a half-acre outdoor play area. Fees for the child care center are expected to be $265 per month for a child enrolled full time.

To see a reproduction of the original article and edition of Pleasanton Pathways, visit: September 23, 1985 Pathways.