A vacant school building tucked beside a shuttered Catholic church in Southwest Detroit has reopened as a $1 million early childhood center designed to serve 76 infants, toddlers and their families. The Beatrice Early Childhood Center, located at 2450 Beatrice Street, sits in the industrial Boynton neighborhood within Detroit's 48217 ZIP Code, an enclave south of the River Rouge surrounded by heavy industry. It represents Starfish Family Services' latest attempt to chip away at a childcare shortage that has left thousands of Detroit families scrambling for a spot.
Starfish Family Services invested $1 million in renovations to transform the long-dormant building into what the nonprofit describes as classrooms designed to support young children and their families, according to ClickOnDetroit. The classrooms feature creative book nooks, comfortable seating, gross motor spaces and sensory zones built specifically for children still learning to crawl, walk and talk. Lyndsey Butts, the center's leader, said the project required significant work and dedication from the Starfish team, per the same report.
The site carries its own history. Starfish and its project partner, Brilliant Detroit, renovated the building next to the former Saints Andrew and Benedict Church, a structure that anchored Southwest Detroit's Slovak immigrant community after its founding on Beatrice Street in 1924. The Archdiocese of Detroit formally merged the parish into Saint Andre Bessette Parish in Ecorse in January 2024, decommissioning the church for secular use following years of declining enrollment. Before parish operations ceased, the building had also hosted the Perry Outreach Center food pantry, according to the Wayne State University Business and Community Law Clinic.
A Consolidation Meant to Stretch Every Dollar
The Beatrice campus isn't a brand-new program so much as a consolidation. It replaces and absorbs operations from Starfish's former Central ECE Center, which had operated at 4330 Central Avenue in Detroit, according to Starfish Family Services' own locations directory. Roxanne Brinkerhoff said the project would incorporate the entire corner into the neighborhood, and that nothing was going to be left to blight, per ClickOnDetroit's report. Community members who once worked or taught in the original school building have remembered its earlier life as the center takes on its new purpose.
Brinkerhoff said the center will help address Detroit's shortage of early childhood care and education, and the numbers behind that shortage are stark. A 2023 regional study from IFF found that 84% of ZIP codes in Wayne County qualify as child care deserts for infants and toddlers ages 0 to 2, with more than six children competing for every licensed slot. Wayne County's licensed providers were able to serve only 21% of children ages 0 to 12 overall, the same study found. Detroit currently has a shortage of childcare providers for children from birth to age 3, and the city also does not have enough childcare slots for children ages 4 to 5, per ClickOnDetroit.
Why Infant Care Is So Hard to Find
The scarcity isn't unique to Detroit. Statewide research released in 2025 by Michigan State University, cited in a brief from Public Policy Associates, found that 58% of Michigan children from birth to age 2 live in areas without enough child care capacity to meet family demand. Part of the problem is regulatory: Michigan licensing rules enforce a strict 1-to-4 adult-to-child ratio for infant and toddler classrooms in centers, and limit home providers to just two children under age 3. Those ratios drive labor costs far higher than for older age groups, which helps explain why providers have historically clustered around preschool-age slots rather than infant care.
Brilliant Detroit, the organization providing on-site programming at Beatrice designed to help children prepare for school, brings its own track record to the partnership. Founded in 2016, the nonprofit has built a reputation for revitalizing neighborhood hubs by converting vacant residential properties into community centers offering early literacy and health services, expanding to 18 sites across Detroit and Pontiac by 2026, as Hoodline reported in its look at the group's decade of growth. Starfish Family Services itself dates back to 1963, and the Inkster-headquartered nonprofit now provides early childhood education, behavioral healthcare and parent support programs to more than 4,000 Metro Detroit children and families annually, according to the Beatrice & Reymont Paul Foundation.
State Wage Stipends Aim to Keep Staff in Place
Staffing remains one of the biggest threats to any new childcare expansion. Michigan launched a $16 million Early Childhood Educator Wage Initiative through MiLEAP in November 2025, distributing monthly stipends of $300 for full-time and $200 for part-time early learning staff through September 2027 to address severe workforce turnover. Those stipends began hitting educator bank accounts in March 2026, as Hoodline reported at the time. Whether that support will be enough to stabilize teacher retention at the new Beatrice center specifically remains to be seen.
The building's transformation reflects a broader pattern taking shape across Southwest Detroit, where organizations have been repurposing closed or vacant infrastructure to fill gaps in family services. It also arrives as thin margins continue to push some longtime providers out of the business altogether, a dynamic Hoodline documented in its coverage of a 30-year Brightmoor daycare closure. For now, the Beatrice Early Childhood Center is intended to bring the former school building back to life as a modern and warm facility, giving 76 children and their families a place that, for decades, sat empty at the corner of a neighborhood determined not to let it stay that way.
