Two stay at home moms fed up with having to travel to the North Side to an indoor play facility for their children decided to open their own. In the midst of the economically revitalizing South Loop, Room2Play – a unique recreation center for children age
As many as 20 kids a day attend the center, accompanied by their parents, and enjoy an array of activities. Room2Play is not a day care center. Instead the facility, a huge, carpeted room with bright lights and a vividly colored wall mural, offers parents a place to bring their children and watch them play. There are no official classrooms nor is there an educational curriculum.
No meals are served, either. Still, the children who attend Room2Play learn through creative and imaginative play, as well as socializing and playing with their peers. The 3,300-square-feet play area is surrounded by tables and chairs designed for parents to sit and watch their children interact with other kids.
“There are no swings or monkey bars for kids to play on here because we believe kids today want more interaction without all the gadgets,” said Josephine Sanders, one of facility’s owners. Room2Play could easily be interpreted as an indoor park for children. “We host a lot of birthday parties and see many caregivers come through here each day with children,” Sanders said. “Kids can also bring their own toys.”
Admission to Room2Play is $12 per day for the first child and $7.50 for each additional child. Parents and babies under 12 months old are admitted free. For parents who plan to visit the center regularly, there are monthly, quarterly and annual memberships available.
The center’s hours of operation are 9:30 a.m.- 5:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9:30 a.m.-noon on Saturdays and Sundays. The facility is a multifunctional one and while its Web site boasts a variety of programs and activities, co-owner Sherri Murphy said that many of them, though listed, have yet to be launched. Among the things being planned for the center is a summer camp for kids age 3 and up.
“We know once the weather breaks and it gets warm, parents will be taking their kids to the park and we just want to offer them an additional resource for summer activity,” Sanders said. But parents can take advantage of the ‘Parent’s Night Out’ now. On the first and third Friday of each month, from 6 p.m.-9 p.m., parents can drop their children off at the facility and enjoy time away from the kids. There is a $9 hourly fee for the first child and a flat $5 fee for each additional child.
The South Loop community, over the past five years, at least, has been transformed from a commercial area, where nightclubs and other businesses once thrived, into a residential one with more families with children. “More and more families are moving to the city and the homes being built in the South Loop are smaller, so that traditional big backyard scenario is gone,” Sanders said.
Room2Play boasts a diverse clientele. While the majority of Room2Play’s customers are from the immediate area, the facility has a reaching appeal, with some customers coming from as far north as Evanston, as far west as Oak Park and as far south as Matteson.
But the majority of the customers live within the immediate area of the center, Sanders said. And most of their customers have come by word of mouth. “During the week the bulk of our customers are white women and most birthday parties booked here are by Black women,” Sanders said. “Initially, we placed an advertisement in Chicago Parent magazine but have actually had great success with parents telling their friends about us.”
With no prior business management experience Sanders, a former IT consultant, teamed up with fellow stay-at-home mom Murphy (who had been a flight attendant), and selffinanced the startup costs for Room2Play. Sanders said that South Side – especially the South Loop – was ripe for such a unique center as Room2Play.
Census data indicates that there are nearly 3,000 children under the age of 5 living in the 60616 ZIP code where the playroom is located. She declined to disclose the actual cost of getting the business off the ground. “Let’s just say we now have a line of credit with Chase Bank,” Sanders said. Sanders lives in the South Shore community with her husband and 5- year-old twin boys.
Murphy, who lives in Bronzeville, is married and has a 3-year-old son. Looking ahead, Sanders said she hopes to open a second location five years from now and is open to any location where there is a need for such a facility. “I would imagine our second location would be located in an underserved community or wherever the demand takes us,” she added.
For more information, call 312- 225-9000.
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