By Gretchen Webster
WESTPORT — Plans to build a new athletics center at Greens Farms Academy and to renovate the former Dress Barn store into a floral studio for Terrain garden store have won approval from the Architectural Review Board.
At their meeting last Tuesday, ARB members liked the designs for both projects, but security concerns about the Greens Farms Academy proposal were raised by ARB member Vesna Herman.
Herman, the only woman on the board, was concerned about the safety of Greens Farms students, particularly girls, in locker rooms and rest rooms on the bottom floor of the facility shared with both maintenance and laundry facilities. The gymnasium is on the second floor.
Students leaving the locker rooms will go into a short corridor, adjacent to the school’s laundry facilities and a large maintenance and storage area.
The school’s maintenance operations are currently in a separate building, but will be combined with the athletic facility into one building, and the unsightly maintenance building will be removed, Michael Kozlowski, representing Claris Design Build Inc., told the board.
About one-third to one-half of the building’s lower floor space will be used for maintenance, he said.
“The laundry room is going right into the corridor with the girls’ locker rooms and bathrooms,” Herman said. “What kind of a proximity is favorable between a maintenance facility and girls’ and boys’ locker rooms?”
“Is this something that Greens Farms is aware of — maintenance facilities and the laundry room emptying into the same corridor as the locker rooms?” she asked.
The Greens Farms Academy board of directors has reviewed the plans and approved them, Kozlowski said. Plus, there will be key pads on the doors of the laundry and maintenance rooms to keep out students, he said.
In addition to her concerns about the location of the locker rooms, Herman also felt two stairways leading from the bottom floor to the upper floor used by students to get to the gymnasium would be too dark, too crowded and unsafe.
Kozlowski explained there would be additional light in the stairways.
Other ARB board members, including Chairman Ward French, lauded the plan, saying it “creates a great environment for the athletic side of the equation.”
Member Jon Halper called the project “a successful proposal.”
All the members of the board including Herman, voted to approve the school’s proposal, although she said she hopes academy administrators would consider the safety concerns she cited.
New design for former Dress Barn OK’d
The board also unanimously approved an application from Terrain East LLC, 561 Post Road East, to convert the former Dress Barn building into a floral studio workshop.
The building, once home to the popular women’s clothing store, has been used as a storage space for Terrain, which opened on the adjacent property in 2012.
The interior will be renovated to facilitate its use as a floral studio, Jennifer Calliagas, representing Terrain, told ARB members. The roof on the wood-frame building has already been replaced, new windows will be installed and the exterior will be painted a darker color to match Terrain’s branding.
The renovated building will not be used for retail sales, she said.
ARB members agreed the plan to convert the building into a florist workspace is a good way to repurpose it. The structure will be more attractive with a refurbished exterior, said French.
Terrain East LLC has submitted a special permit and site plan application for new use of the building to the Planning and Zoning Commission.
Freelance writer Gretchen Webster, a Fairfield County journalist for many years, was editor of the Fairfield Minuteman and has taught journalism at New York and Southern Connecticut State universities.
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