Westport weighs options for new or rebuilt Long Lots school
WESTPORT — A new architect report shows another building can fit on the Long Lots property — a key step in helping officials decide if they should renovate or rebuild the elementary school.
Superintendent Thomas Scarice gave the school board a list of criteria back in March to consider when making the decision. It includes space standards and enrollment, instructional needs, hazardous materials abatement and test fit — or the ability to see if a new school could be built on the site while the current one remained open.
The board was tasked with decision after a report showed the current school was in need of repair.
“This is a great start,” Scarice said at this week’s school board meeting which focused on test fit. “I’m really excited about the potential.”
He said the other criteria will likely be considered at the next meeting with a final recommendation on whether to renovate or build new to be made in June.
And while the final decision is set to come, it’s looking likely a new building might be the choice.
“We think renovation as new is a real challenge with this building,” David Symonds, an architect the district hired as a consultant, told the board Monday.
Scarice said the test fit was an important part of the criteria because the board could be backed into a corner on its options if the
designs showed another building couldn’t be built at the same time.
Symonds presented two possible options for where the new school could go — down by the community gardens or where the athletic fields are.
The prospective building would likely be about 85,000 square feet if Stepping Stones pre-school isn’t included and about 110,000 square feet if it is. The actual size will be determined in the architectural phase once Long Lots’ program and instructional needs are incorporated in with the enrollment to create the education specifications.
The test fit already has the education specifications for Stepping Stones but only factored in projected enrollment for Long Lots itself. Long Lots has about 600 students and Stepping Stones has about 70, Scarice said.
“It is a very substantial building,” Symonds said.
Residents and some board members raised concerns about the drainage at the current soccer fields where the preferred building plan would go. Some neighbors said there are already drainage problems
and the only thing helping them was that the water was able to spread out over the open grass.
One neighbor worried what would happen when that grass was replaced with a building and pavement, saying “I’m going to be floating.”
Neighbors also said the current school was in a great location and wondered if there was anything officials could do to make either of the new building options more central to help ease the light pollution and prevent the new structure from going right up to their property lines.
They noted traffic backs up onto Long Lots and encouraged officials to think about that with determining the bus loops and traffic patterns. They also questioned if it made sense to add even more students with the Stepping Stones program to the already densely populated school.
Scarice and Symonds said the drainage would be addressed by engineering as the project is designed and will be examined during future studies and tests.
“It’s a real exciting opportunity for a real state-of-theart building,” Scarice said.