Surging enrollment means more wear and tear on Strawberry Hill School site

STAMFORD — With Strawberry Hill School only two years away from full K-8 enrollment, work is ramping up on and around the site to accommodate the greater numbers.

A traffic project at the intersection of Strawberry Hill Avenue and 5th Street is designed to increase safety for pedestrians and create better-defined travel lanes for vehicles, while the renovation of a 1860s-era barn on the property is nearly complete.

The C.J. Starr Barn, which was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979, is a large woodframe structure with an Italianate woodwork exterior that was once part of a larger country estate belonging to Starr.

The barn renovation is part of the original construction plan for the school, which opened in 2016 with only kindergarten and first-grade classes. At first, students attended class out of the old 1925 Sacred Heart Academy building, which the city bought from the Sisters of St. Joseph in 2014.

In 2019, a new building was completed on the site, adjacent to the 1925 structure. The new building has more than 30 classrooms in addition to a media center, cafeteria and gymnasium.

A grade level has been added every year, and the school currently caters to students in grades K-6. By 2023, it will be a full K-8 school.

The plan for the barn is to create an additional space for students to use for a variety of reasons.

At a Board of Education meeting in May, Superintendent Tamu Lucero said she envisioned the school using the space for student performances and as a meeting place for the community to use.

For community, “the skies are the limit,” Lucero said.

Funding is split 80-20, with the state picking up the bulk of the cost through a grant. City Engineer Lou Casolo previously said the contract for the work was $2.6 million. On Friday, he said that figure is likely to go up, as additional rot demolition work added cost to the project and has also delayed it past its expected completion date of June 2021.

Casolo said the new estimated completion date is the end of October.

The project is being led by contractor Kronenberger and Sons, a historic building restoration company based out of Middletown.

Part of the renovation included installing a new roof, a new HVAC system, electrical installations and flooring upgrades.

Some of the old timber framing was left exposed, something Casolo said could be used teach students and visitors about the construction of the building.

“It’s a pretty significant building for Stamford as far as historic buildings,” Casolo said at a March meeting of the board.

This week, a trio of trees was cut down at the intersection of Strawberry Hill Avenue and 5th Street in anticipation of traffic work. The corner, which is at the northeast end of the school property, will have pedestrian safety equipment added and better delineated vehicle traffic lanes.

Dave Avery, the president of the Strawberry Hill Neighborhood Association, said he was supportive of the changes.

“It should be making the intersection safer,” he said.

The ongoing challenges brought on by COVID-19 have resulted in more parents driving children to the school, as opposed to allowing them to ride the bus, which is also increasing traffic in the area, he said.

Casolo said the traffic project involves widening the streets to better align them and allow for better movement of vehicles.

“As the population grows at Strawberry Hill, so will the demand for the use of the infrastructure around it,” Casolo said.

Frank Petise, the acting director of transportation for the city, said new turn lanes would be installed and there would be a new traffic signal — a “rectangular rapid flashing beacon” — installed at the intersection. The units are intended to provide greater visibility for pedestrians crossing streets.

“With the school adding a grade every year, there’s more and more pedestrian and vehicle traffic,” Petise said.

A contractor will soon be selected for the intersection work, with a completion target of 2022.

Avery said he has long advocated for safer streets in the neighborhood. In 2016, an 18-year-old was killed when she was struck by a van in front of Stamford High School a few blocks south of Strawberry Hill School.

“Our important issue throughout any of this is to keep the traffic speed under the control and to protect people, protect walkers,” Avery said. “There are a lot of pedestrians out there.”