Westridge Place sits at 1314 Westridge Road, awaiting usage as a child care center. Lease revisions made at the Economic Development Authority meeting Tuesday have cleared another hurdle for the project’s tumultous history.

NEW ULM — The Westridge Place child care project cleared another hurdle at the Economic Development Authority (EDA) meeting Tuesday.

The EDA previously approved the lease agreement for Westridge Place, located at 1314 Westridge Road, at their July 11 meeting. This came a month after the lease agreement was tabled in June and nearly a year after the EDA originally bought the property in July of 2022.

As time passed after the lease agreement was approved, it was discovered there would need to be several revisions to the lease agreement. The biggest change is to the sexual abuse and molestation liability insurance policy. Originally, Secura Insurance was to provide a full policy limit of $1 million. EDA and New Ulm Insurance Agent Tom Furth said circumstances made this coverage impossible.

“Secura doesn’t write [policies for] in-home day cares,” he said. “[I tried to explain] this is not an in-home day care. This is a center setting. It’s a commercially zoned property, fully sprinklered. The only thing in-home is their license. Secura couldn’t get past it. Their argument was in-home [child] care licenses aren’t scrutinized as much as a center license is.”

Furth said the best coverage in the current insurance market is a $100,000 minimum from West Bend Insurance. City Attorney Robert Scott agreed to change the contract language to reflect this.

“When we were drafting this, myself, Mr. Furth, Heather [Bregel], and Chris [Dalton] put a lot of work in,” he said. “The balance we’re trying to strike is to make sure the city and the public who may use these facilities are as fully protected as possible; while making sure the requirements in this lease relating to insurance will be attainable by these [child care] providers.”

Furth said price changes are a common issue in the insurance world, especially in the current day. He said if the situation changes in the future it can be tweaked without issue.

Another necessary change is to med pay claims. Furth explained med pay claims are for any injuries occurring on a property not the result of the property owners negligence. He said the current lease agreement did not specify kids were covered under med pay claims.

“Most [child] care policies will include the kids under med pay,” Furth said. “Ordinarily, if you regularly occupy a premises you can’t make a med pay claim. The same could be argued for the kids who are clients [at Westridge Place]. But this med pay policy includes the kids. A kid gets his finger pinched in a door, falls off a stool, gets his tooth knocked out. There’s things that happen at these day cares [where] it’s nice to have med pay coverage.”

Scott recognized the lack of clarity and said the new language would be included.

After the changes to the lease agreement were discussed, Board member Les Schultz made the motion to approve the revised lease agreement and Board member Char Kalk seconded. The agreement was approved unanimously.

City Council President Andrea Boettger said she feels confident about the new plan and this would be the last time they would need to discuss the matter. It’s currently projected Westridge Place will be fully leased to child care providers by November 1.