By Linda Conner Lambeck

WESTPORT–Perhaps not as riveting as the Times Square Live Cam or watching giant pandas at the San Diego Zoo in real time, but there is now a website for anyone interested in tracking the progress of the construction of a new Long Lots School.

As of a couple of weeks ago, the site went live, providing pictures and regular updates of the $103 million project in a family-friendly vernacular.

Building Committee Co-chairs Jay Keenan and Donald O’Day, highlighted the new website in giving an update on the project to the school board last week.

“It’s time-lapse photography,” Keenan said of a camera that is affixed to D-wing of the existing school. “It shows how things have moved along since framing and foundation started.

It is estimated that updates will be made every three weeks or so until the new school is projected to open in January 2028. 

Fingers crossed

Several years in the making, construction on the Hyde Lane property adjacent to the existing Long Lots started sometime in June. Before then, Keenan said, 100- to 500-foot-deep geothermal wells were dug that will eventually connect to the school and make the school eligible for sizable Eversource rebates.

Newfield Construction is about 75 percent done with the foundation, according to Keenan. 

“If you drive by you can actually see the shape of the school from the road,” he told the board. “Today they poured the high wall for the multipurpose room and footings for the cafeteria.”

Within weeks steel will start to go up. That steel is sitting on trucks in East Hartford, ready to be delivered, the board was told.

For all the progress, there have been hiccups. Some 11 inches of rain in July and 8 inches during the September 13 deluge buried freshly installed plumbing lines under mud. It set things back a couple of days. Unexpected ledge was also hit during the process of drilling borings.

The hope is to try and stay on track for the schedule. A clearer sense of that will occur once about three quarters of the steel is installed, according to the co-chairs.

As for now, the January 2028 opening date remains, but construction still has to get through the winter. The hope is for a tempered winter, not like the one the Northeast experienced in 2026.

Keenan said First Selectman Kevin Christie was taken for a tour of the site last week. The board has been invited to take a peak on Oct. 13, once some steel is up.

The website dedicated to the project was developed with the help of Tanya Kaur Guleria, whose son will be at Long Lots one day.

The site offers timelines, regularly updated information and pictures, images of what the completed school will look like and a place to ask questions.

Construction status, from shovel to first day of school is measured on a giant No.2 pencil pictured on the website. Right now, the project is at “4 out of 10,” with 4 being footings and foundations.

“It’s great to see it progressing,” Board Chair Lee Goldstein said. She noted that all the rain that hampered construction progress is also affecting the current school which is being replaced because of its condition.

Schools Superintendent Thomas Scarice said the rain last Sunday left two inches of water in the office of the existing school.

“(It) cannot be finished soon enough,” Goldstein said of the new building. “To remind people, this is being built next to a busy, full, robust school.”

So far, Scarice said the school and construction have managed to coexist.

Linda Conner Lambeck

^{_{Linda Conner Lambeck covers education for Westport Journal. She was a reporter for more than four decades at the Connecticut Post and other Hearst publications. She has covered education throughout Fairfield and New Haven counties. She is a proud member of the Education Writers Association.}}