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The Cole Academy, a preschool and child care center, is breaking ground Saturday on a nearly $5 million campus in Kapolei.
The company purchased the half-acre parcel in West Oahu last year for its fifth campus.
The land was previously part of the proposed Kapolei Pacific Center, a 3-acre office project that was temporarily shelved during the recession, said Christine Camp, president and chief executive officer of center developer Avalon Development Co. LLC.
The Kapolei campus is expected to open in the fall.
The school’s groundbreaking is three days before the groundbreaking of the $5.5 billion rail transit system in Kapolei.
"Kapolei was the next big frontier because it’s growing so fast and people need our services out there," said Cole Academy owner Gina Mangieri, a KHON2 reporter who opened the first downtown campus in 2004. "We were looking to rent in Kapolei. We just couldn’t make the numbers work for renting. Our tuition simply wouldn’t pay the bills."
The company took advantage of a "better leveraged loan program" from the U.S. Small Business Administration that "made the formula work out such that we could afford to buy and pay a bill less than it would cost to rent," Mangieri said.
The school also has campuses in Kaimuki, Kailua and Kunia and has a total of 100 employees. It is accepting applications for more than 40 positions in Kapolei.
The campus will serve about 240 children.
For more information, go to thecoleacademy.com.
