Buying a child care center in Jacksonville and Northeast Florida

• Rooms full or nearly full, with a waitlist, especially preschool rooms, where each teacher can look after more children.
• A credentialed director who isn't the owner and plans to stay.
• Several years of clean inspections.
• A healthy mix of private tuition and VPK, so the center doesn't depend on state rates.
• Teachers who have been there for years, and pay that keeps them.
• Accreditation and the state's Gold Seal Quality Care designation, which brings higher School Readiness payment rates.
• A building, playground and kitchen in good shape, with a long lease or owned property.
• Tuition collected on time by autopay, with little owed by families who have left.

• Inspection reports. Read several years of them, and ask how each finding was fixed. Serious violations can also cost a center its Gold Seal.
• Enrollment. Compare each room's enrollment with its licensed capacity and actual attendance, and check unpaid tuition.
• Public funding. The state and the coalition set VPK and School Readiness rates, not you. Know how much revenue depends on them.
• Credentials. Find out who holds the director and staff credentials. If those people leave at the sale, you may be out of compliance on day one.
• Insurance and incidents. Review liability coverage (including abuse coverage, and vehicle coverage if the center transports children) and any claims or complaints.
• The building. The license is tied to the location. Check fire inspections, zoning, the playground and the lease term.
• Storms. Ask whether families kept paying through past hurricane closures, and what happened to VPK and School Readiness payments.

• How full is each room today, and how long is the waitlist?
• Who holds the director credential, and are your credentialed teachers planning to stay?
• What has come up in inspections over the last few years, and how did you fix it?
• How much of your revenue comes from VPK and School Readiness, and how much from private tuition?
• When did you last raise tuition, and how do your rates compare with centers nearby?
• How often do teachers leave, and how do you find new ones?
• Have there been any incidents, parent complaints or insurance claims involving children?

This region covers Duval, St. Johns, Clay, Nassau, Baker and Putnam counties: Jacksonville, Jacksonville Beach, St. Augustine, Ponte Vedra Beach, Orange Park, Fleming Island, Green Cove Springs, Fernandina Beach, Yulee, Macclenny and Palatka. Jacksonville merged with most of Duval County in 1968, which makes it the largest city by land area in the lower 48 states.

The economy leans on logistics, the Navy and financial services. Logistics runs through JAXPORT, major rail lines and the meeting of Interstates 95 and 10. The Navy has Naval Air Station Jacksonville and Naval Station Mayport. Insurance and health care matter too. St. Augustine, founded by the Spanish in 1565, and Amelia Island draw steady tourism. Trucking and logistics firms, the building trades, medical practices and home services all fit this market.

Northeast Florida is less seasonal than South or Southwest Florida, with fewer winter residents and more year-round employers. Direct hurricane landfalls have been less common here than on other parts of the coast, but storms still bring flooding along the St. Johns River and the beaches, so check insurance costs and flood zones.

Military families bring skilled workers and working spouses into the labor pool, though they also move on when orders change. St. Johns, Clay and Nassau have added the most new homes, and companies serving those suburbs have grown with them. Georgia is close, and some companies here serve customers across the state line. Work in Georgia may need Georgia licenses, so ask how much revenue comes from there and who holds those licenses.