Meeting Street is a nonprofit provider of educational and therapeutic services to more than 5,000 children and youth in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Nearly 70 percent of the families served have low incomes and more than 20 percent speak a language other than English as their primary language.

Meeting Street offers early childhood, in-school and outpatient services, working with students of all abilities up to age 22. The organization is in the final stages of a master growth plan that includes construction of a new two-story childhood development building in Providence, R.I., as well as renovation of its existing space in Providence.

The $20 million construction/renovation project is developing dedicated early childhood space as part of a 12-acre campus. The first floor of the new development will house an early learning center, including a Head Start classroom; program space for Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC); early childhood sensory treatment/play space; a family library; and a parent/professional training room. The second floor will house space for additional staff and caregiver training as well as meeting space.

The existing early childhood space will be renovated to create three universal pre-K classrooms, four art and music classrooms and a food pantry for families.

Broadstreet committed $6 million from LISC’s New Market Tax Credit allocation to support the project. The financing is particularly important because it helps cover significant increases in construction costs from the time when the project was conceived, pre-pandemic, until construction moved forward. U.S. Bank is the NMTC investor.

Meeting Street is the largest provider of early childhood developmental services in Rhode Island, and it has seen an increased need for services since 2010—now serving five times the number of students it previously served. With NMTC financing, Main Street is able to offer a broader range of programming to even more families in South Providence, a community with high rates of poverty and unemployment.

The development effort is also transforming several parcels that had been designated as brownfields in the community, remediating contaminated land and returning it to productive use. It is adding recreational space for the community, investing in a more attractive streetscape, and creating 15 new permanent jobs alongside Main Street’s existing 184 staff positions, as well as 25 construction jobs.

Without NMTC financing, Meeting Street would be unlikely to fill the capital gap caused by construction hikes and would have to cut planned programming, including a classroom for children on the autism spectrum.