The East Central Community Center is adding space to its building to serve an Early Head Start program.

Carolina Lopez, executive assistant at the Martin Luther King Family Outreach Center, which operates the community center, says work to renovate three classrooms and add five new classrooms by converting a garage began this summer. The project, valued at $2.2 million, is expected to be completed early next year.

The addition to the community center, located at 500 S. Stone, will increase the size of the building by 8,400 square feet, to a total square footage of about 43,000. An outdoor playground also will be added.

Spokane Valley-based Meridian Construction Inc. is the contractor on the project. ZBA Architecture PS and AHBL Inc., both of Spokane, provided architecture and engineering work, respectively.

The former Early Head Start building will be demolished to make way for a dental clinic that will serve low-income families. Community Health Association of Spokane will run the clinic, to be called the East Central Community Center Spokane Dental Clinic. 

The dental clinic project is still in the early planning stages, Lopez says.