Breaking News: Kids' Station Announces New Location
The KinderCare-operated facility will open in spring of 2026 and will replace the one currently located on the Mary Washington Hospital campus.
By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
Email Adele
KinderCare, which operates Kids’ Station, the childcare center located on the Mary Washington Hospital campus, announced today that it has secured a new location.
Stacy Butler, senior district leader for KinderCare, told parents in an email this morning that the new facility will open in the spring of 2026 at 923 Maple Grove Drive, off State Route 3 (Plank Road) near Spotsylvania Towne Center.
The current facility on the hospital campus will be demolished and replaced with a two-story medical clinic. Mary Washington Healthcare earlier this year requested and received Fredericksburg City Council approval to rezone an area of the campus to support construction of the clinic, an office and training center, and a 6,000-square-foot addition to historic Snowden House.
Mary Washington Healthcare operated Kids’ Station until 2021, when it sold the business to KinderCare Learning Companies, a corporation that operates childcare centers across the country.
The healthcare system’s plans to cease supporting on-campus childcare — which its employees could access at a discounted rate — upset many current Kids’ Station families, who spoke during public hearings on the rezoning request this spring and summer.
According to the email from Butler, which was shared with the Advance, Kids’ Station will “continue to operate as normal” until the new facility is ready to open in the spring of 2026.
The new facility will have capacity for 200 children aged 6 weeks to 12 years old, according to the email.
The email also announced new tuition rates.
“We held off on increasing rates for the 2024-2025 school year until we knew the details of our new location,” Butler wrote. “The administrative team in the center has your students' new rates available for you to sign off on. Please see them at your earliest convenience. These new rates [which go into effect in January of 2025] will stay in place for the remainder of the time that we are operating in our current space.”
The Advance has asked KinderCare whether Mary Washington Healthcare employees will receive discounted tuition at the new location and has requested the total square footage of the new center and playground area.
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Do you know if they will have a bus going to the new location from the city schools, since that was one of the advantages they had was having a bus stop for kids going there afterschool?