The Learning Experience day care chain expands in Pasco

The Learning Experience, a Florida chain of day care centers, is opening two new locations in Pasco County.

The Deerfield Beach-based chain says it will open one of the two locations this spring and the other in the summer 2025.

The first to open will be in Odessa at 2358 Gunn Highway, and the other will be in Zephyrhills. The centers will employ up to 30 staff members and teachers and have about 180 children.

Each of the two new centers will be in new 10,000-square-foot buildings and come with a 5,000-square-foot playground. The company says the costs to build the schools is, on average, $3.2 million to $3.5 million.

When they open, The Learning Experience will have 11 centers in the region, with seven in the Tampa Bay area and one each in Lakewood Ranch and Cape Coral.

A center in Fort Myers is expected to “open soon.”

In all, it has 370 centers in 29 states.

The centers are both corporate and franchisee owned.

In a news release announcing the new Pasco centers, The Learning Experience says that when its real estate team finds an area suitable for expansion, it looks at several factors. Among those, daytime population in the area; population of children ages 6 and under in a one-, three- and five-mile radius; and average household incomes within those same areas.