Grow With Us Learning Academy will officially open its newest location Monday, June 29, at Freedom Tech Center in Fort Walton Beach, adding a building rated for up to 300 children to the development at 1900 Lewis Turner Blvd.

• The Greater Fort Walton Beach Chamber of Commerce held a ribbon cutting at the site Wednesday afternoon ahead of the opening. The event also served as the 2,000th chamber event for ambassador Paul Singleton, a 50-year chamber volunteer who cut his first ribbon.

The Freedom Tech Center site is the seventh open facility for Grow With Us, with an eighth set to open in about three weeks at Hammock Bay in Freeport. The academy serves children from six weeks old through kindergarten, along with school-age care.

Chief Financial Officer Matt Turpin, who joined the company in January, said the new building represents the template for future locations.

“Grow With Us is just not our name, it’s a mindset,” Turpin said. “We don’t stop here. We want to continue to grow and be more and more involved in this community.”

Turpin said the academy offers free childcare to employees for their own children. He introduced Emily Johns, director of curriculum and interim site director, who he said will be the face families see most often at the new center. Trey Pippen is the company’s founder, owner and CEO.

The childcare facility joins a growing roster of tenants at the 52-acre Freedom Tech Center, which currently includes two hotels, with new headquarters for Beast Code, and a joint facility for Bit-Wizards and TalkingParents, under construction.

Developer Jay Odom, whose team won the Air Force lease bid for the Freedom Tech Center site, said the childcare project has been a hometown effort. 

• “That’s ours. We’re the only hometown people working on this. It’s in our backyard. We’re doing the deal,” Odom said he told his team during the bidding process. He said the final design closely matches what was originally submitted.

The Freedom Tech Center campus also includes 312 living units. Odom said his company has built an identical childcare facility for Grow With Us at Hammock Bay set to open shortly, with a third planned down the road.

“This is going to be the best top-notch childcare, child education facility in Okaloosa County,” Odom said.