CORRECTION: Stepping Stones Center for Early Learning will serve children ages six weeks to five years. An earlier version of this story said six months to five years.

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Written and photographed by Will Yurman

Layne Morrill is a retired tax and business attorney. As a kid, he wanted to be an architect. “But my art teacher said you can’t draw worth a crap,” he said. So the law it was. 

He and his wife built a summer home in Yachats 20 years ago, and eventually retired there. And in his retirement, he has taken on the role of a developer of affordable housing, first in Yachats, and now in Florence. Elm Park Apartments and the Elm Park Early Learning Center in Florence are his current projects. The apartment complex is open and nearly fully rented as of mid-July. The early learning center is on track to open September 8, the first day of school in Florence, providing daycare and childcare for around 80 children. 

Describing the project is a bit like pulling apart Russian nesting dolls. The Yachat developer’s two companies worked with the city of Florence, a local non-profit, the federal government, state agencies, banks, and foundations to build the 32-unit subsidized apartments and adjacent childcare center on Greenwood Street in Florence.

It is the inevitable complexity of private-public collaboration.

“My practice in tax and real estate transactions and business transactions really gave me the tools over 40, 45 years to be able to do the development part of it and put together the financing and the contractor, and get it all assembled and see that it gets built,” Morrill said during an interview in July. 

“It just kind of came together that maybe I could do something and that would be enjoyable and beneficial at the same time,” Morrill said. “This is my feel-good retirement job.”

In 2024, Morrill approached the city of Florence with the idea of developing low-cost apartments on property along Greenwood Street. 

The city received a grant from the state, Morrill said, to build out the streets, sewer and storm drainage system. Morrill then got to work raising money for both the apartments and early learning center. 

The two projects are physically side by side, but were developed as separate entities. Morrill’s company Coastal Village, Inc. developed the apartments. The project cost about $15 million to build. A $11.8 million 30-year interest-free loan from the state provided the bulk of the funding. Banner Bank provided a $2 million loan, and donations from foundations and Morrill’s own investment made up the rest of the cost. 

Meanwhile, the early learning center was developed by Chestnut Management, LLC, also owned by Morrill. “It’s a separate company doing the early learning center. It’s a separate parcel of land. It’s a separate owner entity. It’s a separate architect. Separate contractor,” he said. A Russian doll of its own. Low-income apartments are exempt from state prevailing wage laws. This meant the apartments would cost less to build, if the construction was kept separate from the childcare center, Morrill said.

Funding for the $4.2 million childcare center came from grants from the state and area foundations. 

Elm Park Apartments

The apartment complex has a mix of one, two and three-bedroom apartments. 350 people had expressed interest in renting one of the 32 units when they first became available, Morrill said. 

As of mid-July, all but one were rented, and most were already occupied by tenants.

Every apartment comes with a full-size washer and dryer. There is a community room, raised garden beds, and a greenhouse. Children are already playing on the outdoor playground, and tomatoes are growing in the greenhouse.

Rents are subsidized on a sliding scale based on income that can range from 30% to 60% of the Siuslaw region average. A three-bedroom apartment costs between $620 and $995 per month, depending on income. A one-bedroom costs between $449 and $719 a month. 

Half of households in the Siuslaw region earn below a sustainable income, and can struggle to find and affordable place to live, according to the ALICE Report from the United Way.

[Read “Unlivable” for more information on the financial struggles in the area]

Elm Park Early Learning Center

There are about 642 children five years old and younger in the Siuslaw region, and only 148 available childcare slots, according to an August 2025 report from the city of Florence. And childcare is expensive, costing local parents $984/month on average, according to the report. 

The Elm Park Early Learning Center will house four classrooms with room for nearly 80 children. Morrill’s Chestnut Management LLC will be the landlord, for now, renting out two rooms to Head Start of Lane County and two community-run classrooms to Siuslaw Childcare Friends, a non-profit created to support the project and families.

Siuslaw Childcare Friends (SCF) has contracted with Stepping Stones Center for Early Learning LLC, a local childcare provider operated by Jenn Lukashev, to run the two community rooms.

Head Start is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It provides support to low-income children and families. Children who qualify will be able to attend Head Start for free. Head Start of Lane County(HSOLC) already runs a facility near the Siuslaw Elementary School. The two new classrooms will add 32 openings for families in the area. 

Head Start of Lane County wanted to expand its presence in the Florence area, Patrick DeCelles said. DeCelles is the operations director for HSOLC. Finding an affordable space was key. And that was what Morrill’s building brought to the table. Because construction was funded through grants and donations, there is no mortgage. That makes it financially viable to operate childcare. 

Head Start will serve families based primarily on their income level. There are other factors, but earning at or below the Federal Poverty Level is a key to being eligible, and that is $33,000 for a family of four in 2026. 

“We provide different types of services, such as dental care, medical, mental health, food insecurities. Helping people that are experiencing homelessness. It’s much more than just, ‘Let’s come to school and learn our ABCs.’ It’s come to school. We’ll provide you a safe place,” Charleen Strauch said. Strauch is the executive director of  Head Start of Lane County. 

For the younger children, 18 to 36 months, there will be two classes that meet twice a week for half-day sessions, with up to eight kids in each class. In addition, teachers will make two home visits a month to each family, providing additional support. 

And they’ll have one room for children ages 3-5, with room for up to 16 children, for a half-day, four-day-a-week program. 

Stepping Stones Center for Early Learning LLC will run the other two classrooms in the center, and will target families earning above the Federal Poverty Level. Jenn Lukashev, Stepping Stones’ owner,  moved to Florence in 2018 and started her at-home daycare center in September of that same year. She became a licensed daycare provider in 2019, she said. 

At Elm Park, she’ll have room for up to 38 children, spread across two rooms and ages six weeks to five years.  Stepping Stones will be open 7:30 am to 5:30 pm, five days a week. They wlll be the only facility operating full-day, five days a week, in the region, she said. 

Lukashev has been looking to expand beyond her home daycare for three years. 

“This has been a really long journey for me to be able to find the right space,” she said.

“When we’re talking about early learning, the margins are really tight, and so, just finding a building that would be able to be within attainable means to open just seemed like it was not possible,” Lukashev said.

Daycare is expensive. Stepping Stones will charge between $1,200 and $1,400 per month for five-day-a-week care, depending on the child’s age. The state provides some financial assistance for families, based on need, through the Employment Related Day Care subsidy, but the program currently has a waitlist. 

Siuslaw Childcare Friends hopes to raise $70,000 this year to subsidize some of the children at Stepping Stones. The goal is to make Florence more inviting and accessible to families with children, Adrian Pollut, president of the SCF board, said. “Having more families in Florence can only be a positive for us,” Pollut said. 

“We believe in the success of children. And we believe in the success of their families. And we believe in the successes of our community, and we’ve all got to do it together in order for that to happen. I think we all have that responsibility to each other for that,” Strauch said. 

Morrill believes he’s built something that will serve the Florence-area community for decades. Head Start and Stepping Stones will pay the operating costs to run the building — taxes, insurance, maintenance and utilities — but that’s all. The landlord will get no money. “The landlord is not in it for money. The landlord is in it for making that happen,” Morrill said, speaking of himself. 

Beyond that, at 75, he is looking past his own time in the project. His wife has told him it’s time to quit, and this may be his last development project. The plan is for Head Start to purchase the building and become the landlord, while continuing to rent to a community provider through Siuslaw Childcare Friends.

And Morrill is making plans to turn over the apartment complex to Northwest Housing Alternatives out of Portland, “the largest nonprofit developer operator of affordable housing in Oregon,” he said. 

He’s enjoyed the work.

“It’s amazing and satisfying. Working with all the professionals from engineers, architects, contractors, subcontractors. Most of them are really great people and try to figure out what you want, what you need, and get it done the way you want it, he said. “But most satisfying is to see people move in and the expressions on their faces.”