‘Very happy about our new friend’
Groundbreaking celebrates start of Greenwich High School’s Cardinal Stadium project
GREENWICH — Kaitlyn Kelly remembers playing under the Cardinal Stadium bleachers as a kid.
Now a Greenwich High School sophomore who plays lacrosse and volleyball, Kaitlyn is the daughter of Board of Education member Joe Kelly, who for nearly two decades coached rugby at the school. Her three older siblings were athletes, as well, which meant that Kaitlyn, the youngest Kelly kid, spent a considerable amount of time at the 50-year-old field.
She recalls standing beneath the bleachers with friends, looking up
and wondering whether the rusty, rickety structure was sound.
Those not-so-distant memories make the work that’s about to begin on Cardinal Stadium all the more exciting for her and her family.
“I’m so excited,” Kaitlyn Kelly said as she stood beside her father and a pile of dirt outside the stadium Wednesday afternoon.. “I’ll be able to use them by my junior or senior year.”
The Kellys were joined by members of the Board of Education and Board of Estimate and Taxation, Greenwich Public School staff and administrators, parents and Greenwich High athletes in gathering for the official groundbreaking for the Cardinal Stadium project.
The multimillion-dollar project will include replacing both the home and visitor-side bleachers, improving field lighting and the speaker system, adding a through road, relocating the tennis courts, adding a ticket kiosk and a press box and enhancing accessibility as required by the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Phase 1A of the project has already begun, with the rickety home-side bleachers of Kaitlyn Kelly’s memory torn down late last year. The new bleachers have already been fabricated but need to be erected, and a new press box with an elevator, a new team room under the bleachers and a new concession stand are all still to be constructed.
Wednesday’s ceremony was a symbolic groundbreaking. Shovel-wielding school and town officials gathered around a pile of dirt on the walkway approaching the stadium and sprinkled dirt from one side of the heap to the other. The site where construction is slated to begin shortly remains muddy and vacant.
Joe Kelly, who has been the Board of Education’s point-person on the project, said the actual digging will being “forthwith.” He began the ceremony by mourning the school’s “old friend,” the torndown bleachers, and celebrating its new friend, “the soon-tocome” new bleachers.
“Our old friend was not perfect,” Kelly said in his rousing opening remarks. “Our old friend had some things. .. It was good for its time, our old friend. But our new friend is going to be a lot better than our old friend. Our new friend is going to have ramps. Our new friend is going to have elevators. Our new friend is going to have a ticket kiosk . ... Our new friend is going to have bathrooms. Our new friend is going to have changing rooms. Our new friend is going to have a lot of great stuff. I’m very happy about our new friend that we’re about to start building today.”
Kelly was followed by remarks from Greenwich High Parent Teacher Association Co-President Stephanie Cowie, First Selectman Fred Camillo and Athletic Director Gus Lindine.
“We are so excited for the opportunity to be able to have a place that is so much more welcoming and inviting to our guests,” Lindine said, surrounded by a small group of Greenwich High athletes. “To be more accessible and more comfortable for our spectators, and to be more usable and productive for our student-athletes.”
The timing of the construction has recently been a cause of some concern. The goal had long been to finish the bleachers in time for graduation in June. As recently as the fall, the goal seemed attainable.
But the project has since been delayed, most recently by the Board of Estimate and Taxation. At their Feb. 22 meeting, members expressed confusion over the project and declined to release additional funding needed to complete Phase 1A.
Kelly, on Wednesday, said that even though the bleachers would not be complete in time for commencement, graduates and their families will get to see the progress at Cardinal Stadium, where the improvements are greatly needed, the speakers agreed.
“I just can’t wait until this fall to feel that energy as I get to this stadium,” Lindale said. “To look out there and see all that red and white and those brand-new grandstands, and to hear the band playing ‘Go Big Red’ and to hear those Cardinal Crazies screaming for their friends and teammates, and to watch these kids out on the field. It’s going to be a wonderful moment for all of us — and one that I think we’ve all been waiting for.”