GREENWICH (CT)
Greenwich Citizen
By PATRICIA Mc CORMACK
mailto:pmccormack@bcnnew.com
An early Thanksgiving present of an unusual sort was bestowed on the Stanwich School Board of Trustees Friday when the Diocese of Bridgeport sold 25 acres of its property to the school for what is believed to be $15 million. That is what the Catholic diocese headed by the Most Rev. William Lori, bishop of Bridgeport, had been asking for the land that abuts 17 acres owned by St. Agnes Church at 247 Stanwich Road. The diocese needs the money to help pay off a $21 million recent settlement with victims of sexual abuse by priests.
Disclosure of the sale to the school rather than to unnamed developers who had been in the running was greeted with joy by the school founder, Pat Young. "We are just very excited," she said. It means for the first time the school, founded in 1998, will actually own land. The highly thought of coeducational independent school now goes to grade nine. Classes are held in leased space at Greenwich Reform Synagogue near St. Agnes Church and at St. Catherine of Siena Church in Riverside.
What the school paid for the parcel remains in limbo. Neither buyer nor seller disclosed the price tag. However, the amount of money that changed hands will be open to public view when the property transfer is recorded in official land transfer records of the Town of Greenwich. Stanwich has a student body of 350. At the synagogue location, students in grades K to 6 are taught. Students in grades 7 to 9 are taught at the Riverside location.