Sunshine Center goes dormant

SANDPOINT — Steep overhead costs have forced the Sunshine Kids Center to go dormant after 10 months of business.

Employees say the state-of-the-art daycare center at the corner of U.S. Highway 2 and Ridley Village Road was served with a three-day eviction notice earlier this week.

A sign on the front door of the 12,000-square-foot building said Sunshine Center closed permanently on Thursday.

“It was the overhead of the lease. That was the killer, basically,” said Pat Amstutz, who took over the business in June, barely six months after it opened.

The monthly lease on the $1.5 million facility was $15,000 a month, she said.

The business employed more than a dozen part- and full-time employees. Amstutz said the daycare had up to 200 children enrolled at its peak, but still had more room than it could use.

The building is owned by Baker Construction of Spokane, Wash. A Baker representative familiar with matters involving the Sunshine Center was not available for comment on Friday.

Employees worked to steer Sunshine customers to other daycare centers in the greater Sandpoint area and to in-home care providers to try and keep parents from being left in the lurch on such short notice.

“The employees have been scrambling to help the families,” said Kelly Wendle, who worked as the daycare center’s education director.

Amstutz said the facility was overbuilt “tremendously.”

“That’s basically it, much as I hate to say it,” said Amstutz.

The founder of the business, Bren Hamilton, declined to comment and emphasized that she has had no hand in the Sunshine Center since turning the reins over to Amstutz last summer.

Hamilton and her husband formed Sunshine Center Inc. in 2006, Idaho Secretary of State records indicate. Amstutz was listed as the company’s bookkeeper. The facility celebrated its grand opening in January 2009.

The corporation was dissolved on Monday, secretary of state filings show.

Amstutz formed Sunshine Kids Center LLC when she took over the business.

The Hamiltons filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in U.S. District Court in September. Also known as straight bankruptcy, Chapter 7 is the quickest and simplest form of bankruptcy available. The bankruptcy filings list total assets of $266,110 and liabilities of $563,361. The latter sum includes $20,000 in promissory note payments owed to Amstutz.

Bren Hamilton told The Daily Bee that slack economic conditions forced her to relinquish ownership of the facility, which featured classrooms, an infant center, performance space and an infirmary.

“We took on more than we could handle,” she said in June.

Wendle made a similar observation concerning Amstutz.

“I guess it was too much for her to take on,” Wendle said.