Picture two dozen parents pulling into the same parking lot at 7:45 a.m., each carrying an infant, all trying to reach one front door at the same time. That's the scenario Greenwich planning commissioners couldn't stop asking about this month, as they told the Goddard School it needs a far more detailed traffic plan before its proposal to turn the old Acme supermarket into a 216-child daycare can move forward.

The question nobody could answer.

At a July pre-application review, commissioners grilled the national daycare chain's representatives on how parents carrying infants would safely move through the site, how left turns onto Route 1 would be handled during rush hour, and — the sharpest question of the night — what happens if dozens of families all show up at once.

Commissioner Mary Jenkins didn't mince words. "If you have 24 people coming with infants all at the same time, regardless of how much parking you have, you have 18 rooms and 36 staff, you've got to have 18 people in the rooms … I'm struggling a little with how that'll be handled," she said. "Not from a parking point of view, but from a safety point of view." She wasn't buying the proposed three-to-five-minute drop-off window either, based on her own experience with infants: "If it goes wrong, it's going to go unbelievably wrong."

A traffic problem hiding in plain sight.

P&Z Chair Margarita Alban wants to see exactly where parents would drive up, where staff receive infants, how those infants get safely into the building, and how cars actually flow around the property. She flagged left turns onto West Putnam Avenue and Dayton Avenue as dangerous, especially during morning drop-off and the 3 p.m. school-year rush — and asked what happens during sudden queuing if parents arrive simultaneously.

The applicant's attorney, Tom Heagney, pushed back that the school runs on a flexible schedule — drop-off from 7 to 9:30 a.m., pickup from 3 to 6 p.m. — meant to spread families out rather than funnel them in all at once. Commissioner Nick Macri wasn't convinced, pointing out that nothing stops every single parent from showing up in that first hour anyway, and noted a steep grade change between the parking lot and the front door that complicates walking a stroller — or an infant carrier — across the site.

A forgotten loading dock becomes its own flashpoint.

Macri also zeroed in on a disused loading driveway off Brookside Avenue, originally approved back in 1976 for supermarket deliveries and now sitting blocked behind a chain. He asked whether the whole structure could simply be torn out and replaced with landscaping. Heagney's answer highlighted a bigger limitation: Goddard is only leasing the site, not buying it, which restricts how much exterior work the company can actually commit to.

The math behind the plan.

The site plan shows roughly 30 parking spaces for parent drop-off, plus 50 more across the street for staff. Of 40 total employees, 30 would be on-site at any given time.

Why commissioners haven't just said no.

Despite the pointed questioning, commissioners acknowledged the obvious: Greenwich badly needs more daycare capacity. Alban said the town recognizes that need and considers the site a real opportunity — if the circulation plan can actually be solved. Heagney called the local shortage "acute."

What happens now.

No formal application has been filed yet. This was the second of two pre-application reviews, and new demands from commissioners must be addressed before the project can advance. Separately, another developer is pursuing approval for a nine-unit apartment building in the same former Acme parking lot. Residents can track the application (PLPZ 2026 00234) through P&Z meeting agendas at greenwichct.gov; no date for the next review has been announced.