The Goddard School, a company that operates daycare locations at more than 600 schools nationwide, is looking to renovate the old supermarket structure on West Putnam Avenue in central Greenwich.

GREENWICH — Representatives of a proposed daycare operation are aiming to convince town planning officials that a planned pre-school for over 200 youngsters at a busy location in central Greenwich would be a safe and orderly operation.

At a preliminary review of the plan by the Goddard School to renovate the old Acme supermarket building  at 160 West Putnam Ave., members of the Planning & Zoning Commission said they wanted specifics on how the youngsters would be dropped off and picked up.

Commissioner Nick Macri told the representatives of the daycare company, "Our focus, looking at daycare centers, is the safety of the children, specifically at drop-off and pick up, that's when the most activity is happening." He said he wanted to see "a really serious concerted effort to study how that's going to work," as the review process advances,

The Acme Markets store on West Putnam Avenue closed in fall 2025. The Goddard School, a company that operates daycare locations in Stamford and Darien and more than 600 schools nationwide, is looking to renovate the structure and turn it into an educational center for youngsters. The center would accommodate children from infancy through age 5, and up to 216 youngsters would be supervised at the site, if approved.

Tom Heagney, an attorney representing Goddard, said the drop-offs and pick-up would be spread out. "This is school really operates in a different model than the other schools we have in town," he said, "They have a flexible drop-off and pick-up. With this approach, it spreads out the arrivals and pickups." 

Children would be dropped off from 7 to 9:30 a.m. and picked up from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Heagney noted that the daycare operators would address "the main points, concerns about safety, pick-up and drop off, and ingress and egress," at future hearings. He told the commission that the need for daycare in Greenwich was "acute," and commissioners said they understood the importance of filling the demand.

Chairwoman Margarita Alban said the commission would want to study how cars would enter and exit the site. "What we always want to see is where does the parent drive up? Where does the parent park? How does the infant get safely inside, how do the cars flow around the site?" Alban said safety issues would also be scrutinized in regard to a proposed playground.

According to the Goddard School, the curriculum for early learners is "designed to help children develop social, emotional, and cognitive skills through curiosity and play." The Greenwich facility would employ about 40 people, including 36 instructors, and would feature a 6,000-square-foot playground. 

The property is owned by Greenwich Grocery Store Owners LLC, based in Dallas. Goddard would be the tenant there.

Macri said he was also looking for aesthetic improvements and additional landscaping at the highly visible site. "We'd love to see something good happening at the whole site, not just the inside," he said.

"We're looking to obviously improve the look of the site," Heagney responded.

The proposal was left open for a formal submission with traffic data and further review.

In a separate proposal, a developer is seeking approval to build a nine-unit apartment building in the former grocery store's parking lot.

July 9, 2026