Isle of Wight’s Board of Supervisors voted unanimously on Oct. 21 to approve a proposal to renovate the former James River Christian Academy on Benns Church Boulevard into a daycare facility.

The property’s owner, Vincent Carollo, had requested a conditional use permit, though Jamie Mintz, owner and lead teacher of Kids Come First of South Church Street, will be running the new daycare. Mintz plans to keep Kids Come First open at its current location and open the new daycare under a different, to-be-announced name.

The daycare will be housed in one of the two 9,240-square-foot classroom buildings on the campus. The other remains occupied by Southside Vineyard Community Church.

Both buildings date to the 1970s. During the 1980s, a gymnasium building was added and the roughly 25-acre parcel was rezoned conditional residential to allow for the construction of 10 townhouses that served as teacher housing. The school closed in 2007.

According to a report from county staff, the roughly 9,000-square-foot daycare is projected to generate an average of 100 vehicle trips per day, which is less than the 200-trip threshold that would trigger the need for a formal traffic impact analysis per the county’s Newport Development Service Overlay district regulations.

Board Chairman Dick Grice asked that any playground added to the site be fenced due to the building’s proximity to Benns Church Boulevard, a four-lane divided highway.