Lullaboo Nursery and Childcare Centre is a rapidly expanding daycare concept in an industry that is currently high in demand.
But the challenge these days for entrepreneurs such as Halim Mikhael and his wife Irini, who run the business, is finding the real estate to set up shop.
Increasingly, childcare space is finding a home in non-traditional areas such as shopping centres and plazas and there’s also a golden opportunity for them to be part of the planning process for mixed-use developments.
“There’s a huge supply demand issue for childcare,” said Halim Mikhael, the company’s President and CEO.
“Landlords should understand that having childcare in their developments is a greater good for the community. It provides a hub for residences, it allows people to find employment, it allows children to be taken care of for purpose-built facilities.
“Landlords have just as much of a responsibility in order to create this space. They can’t just have it as an afterthought because they think childcare is a great use that’s nice and independent that they can put off to one corner. It’s purpose-built childcare that is relevant to the community and to the people that live in the area of what these landlords are developing.”
Lullaboo Nursery and Childcare Centre was founded in 2008 by Irini and Halim Mikhael. While looking for childcare for their first daughter, Irini, a Professional Engineer for a worldwide organization and her husband Halim, a Professional Accountant for a Blue Chip corporation, simply were not satisfied with the service and quality offered in child Care.
Determined to change this, Lullaboo built and opened its first centre in Richmond Hill, Ontario, and was quickly at capacity. Professional service to families was the primary objective. Appreciating the effort that families have to endure to make life and work balance was crucial to the relationship with each family that Lullaboo served.
In 2010, two new custom designed centres opened in Vaughan and Mississauga. In 2014, the original Richmond Hill centre was expanded. In 2015, Lullaboo’s first Brampton centre was established. From 2016 to 2019, they opened the second centre in Brampton, in Toronto Beaches area, one in Mississauga Heartland, then Cambridge and Bradford centres. In summer 2021 they opened their Toronto College campus and in January 2022 they opened their Mississauga Meadowvale campus followed by Aurora Campus. This year, the concept welcomed both Toronto Avenue and Bedford locations and opened the largest childcare in the GTA, Brampton Wanless Campus. Plans for more centres in Milton, Mississauga, Brampton, Toronto, Oakville, Kitchener, Guelph, Markham are well under way.
Today it has 16 locations in the Greater Toronto Area.
Halim Mikhael said locations range from 5,500 square feet to 20,000 square feet.
“Right now we’re looking at 25 by 2025,” he said.
“There’s demand in the market. I would open 25 new locations. You can’t find them . . . There’s so much demand that you can put something anywhere and people will drive to it.”
Lullaboo operates on sites it owns and also on sites it leases.
Kelly Farraj, Senior Vice President at The Behar Group Realty Inc., Brokerage, which is helping Lullaboo with its real estate needs, said there should be planned childcare centres in all mixed-use centres.
“That’s where the families are going,” he said.
“If there are any developers out there that want to sell off a parcel of land for this type of use, we’d be open to it as well. The uniqueness of Lullaboo is that they don’t just lease daycares. They also buy land to develop their own and they buy land to develop a retail plaza with a daycare in it. So they’re very flexible in how we structure a deal.”
