St. A’s Building Project Update with Msgr. Rob Kinnally [Q&A]

The new St. Aloysius Parish buildings at South Avenue and Cherry Street have been taking shape since the Planning & Zoning Commission unanimously approved a special permit for the project three years ago.

Msgr. Rob Kinnally, pastor at St. A’s, announced this week that Maria Hillman will be the first director of the new St. A’s Catholic Preschool.

We recently interviewed Kinnally about the building project.

Here’s a transcript of our conversation.

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New Canaanite: What is the status of the building project at St. A’s and what are your timelines?

Msgr. Rob Kinnally: The Education and Faith Center exterior is complete. We are working completely inside now, which is why passersby see so many construction vehicles but few people—it’s because they’re working inside. That work will all be done by May of this year and it will house the St. A’s Catholic Preschool, which will be for two-year-olds through five-year-olds approximately 100 students throughout the course of the week. It’s a state-of-the-art building with all the kinds of bells and whistles you need for early education including heated floors on the first floor—because little ones are always on the floor—and a state-of-the-art high-level security system. It also has the Saint Carlo Acutis Chapel. He’s a new saint in the Catholic church. He was a teenager who loved soccer and had a website that was really wonderfully faith-based for people. The website still exists. He died when he was a teenager. That chapel will seat about 70 people. It will have beautiful, turn-of-the-20th century stained glass windows from Germany that were in a church in Bridgeport that’s currently closed. It also has a gymnasium that’s elementary school regulation size and doubles as an auditorium that seats 300 people.

Talk about how you planned alongside the library with its own rebuilding project and what kind of synergy you envision between the two campuses. 

The synergy is intentional. Going back several years, I met with library leadership and we—in both design and in purpose—we worked well together. The green space [at St. A’s] is a park-like setting that stretches from Cherry Street to Maple Street. And it’s adjacent to the church and the school and will have little prayer/quiet areas for folks to sit. And every day will be a beautiful day. 

The structure itself is something that the Planning & Zoning Commission liked very much, I recall from those public meetings on the new Education and Faith Center.

Yes, it compliments the library and our church. So this building is situated between the library and the church. We know that’s an important corner in New Canaan, so it’s set back a little further than the other school was, which everybody loves, and about 100 trees will be planted between the green space and parking lot. We’re creating ‘islands’ in the parking lots, so it’s a very green area and the people in the town will be able to use some of the spaces for different kinds of gatherings and meetings. 

What about the other new building?

We will give a progress report on that down the line. But we’ve been focused on getting this Education and Faith Center open for the preschoolers. The functions of the Center are preschool, religious education and then parish ministry meetings. The other building has a community room on the first floor, a youth center on the top floor and a small café for the community to gather both inside and outside.

How many New Canaan Public school kids participate in St. A’s religious education programs? 

About 800. 

I know school security is not a warm-and-fuzzy topic, but it’s an important one. Is there anything else you wanted to say about the new building’s safety?

I think parents always want to know about that in these days of worrying about schools and children’s vulnerability. It’s state-of-the-art security with limited access and egress. We have cameras, people will need pass keys to get in, there will be a security desk, and the windows are safe and higher than in the previous school building. 

It sounds like this project is for the church and parish, but it’s also very much for the community. You have talked about the outdoor green space between Maple and Cherry, and areas to gather there. Will there be meeting rooms made available to the community, as well?

Yes, though we don’t have a whole lot of that, especially during the day because the kids will be in there. But it’s something we have talked about.