Stew Leonard Jr. wants a Stewie the Duck Swim School inside the company's Newington grocery store, in space that used to belong to Sleepy's and Pet Value. Both of those tenants have gone out of business.
The pool on the drawing board would be 25 feet wide and 60 feet long. Anyone could pay for lessons, and Leonard hopes the school can be finished in 2027; the town approved its special permit with conditions on Nov. 24, 2025. The Hartford Courant reported the plan Saturday.
A Pool in Retired Retail Space
Newington would be the first swim school inside a Stew Leonard's store. Stewie the Duck schools already operate in Norwalk and Clifton, New Jersey, outside the grocery operation. This one would take over a former mattress shop and pet store rather than add another grocery aisle.
A 25-by-60-foot pool is a modest rectangle by recreation-center standards, and an ambitious thing to fit into that footprint. The Courant describes Leonard, who runs the grocery company with his family, as planning the school with his wife, Kim, as part of a broader push on water safety.
The Newington Town Plan and Zoning Commission approved with conditions a petition for a special permit under Section 3.11.1 for a recreational place of assembly — an indoor swim facility — at 1581 Southeast Road in the Business Zone on Nov. 24, 2025, according to the town's Notice of Decision.
What the Norwalk School Already Does
The closest model opened in June 2023 at 55 Westport Ave. in Norwalk, The Hour reported. Classes run across eight skill levels, starting with Ducklings 1, which introduces floating and water safety to infants as young as 6 months.
In 2023, Norwalk tuition was $140 a month for most swimmers and $160 for the advanced Super Ducks level, plus a $10 registration fee. Those figures are that school's prices from that year, not a rate card for Newington. Net proceeds were described as supporting swim lessons for children in need through grants. After the Norwalk pool had been open two months, the foundation donated $5,000 to Horizons Greens Farm Academy in Westport for swim programming.
By last summer the weekly load was much larger. Leonard told WBUR's Here & Now in July that "at our Norwalk, Connecticut, location, 1,000 kids a week are taking swim lessons," and that Clifton was "another 1,000 kids a week."
Lessons, Grants and a Family Loss
Leonard and Kim lost their 21-month-old son, Stew Leonard III, known as Stewie, to drowning during a family vacation in 1989. They started the Stew Leonard III Water Safety Foundation after his death. Leonard has said the couple is expanding efforts to promote water safety and prevent childhood drowning, and he has said drowning is the leading cause of unintentional injury death for children ages 1 to 4.
A company spokeswoman told the Courant that 100 percent of profits from the Stewie the Duck swim schools are donated to the foundation. Swim programs apply for grants that support free and low-cost lessons for families in need. She said the foundation has raised $6 million to fund lifeguard training and hundreds of thousands of free or low-cost lessons for children in need. Its motto is "saving lives…one lesson at a time."
The foundation also awards more than $160,000 a year in swim-lesson scholarships to YMCAs, Boys & Girls Clubs and local recreation departments nationwide, and it funds lessons for inner-city children at existing pools, including those same kinds of sites. In the July interview, Leonard said the swim-school charity provides more than 60,000 free lessons every year. Foundation statistics cited by the Courant say lessons reduce drowning risk by 88 percent, and that 23 percent of child drownings occur during a family gathering near a pool.
A 2027 Hope, Not an Opening Date
Leonard told Here & Now, "I'd like to have 12 swim schools one day. That's my goal." A Newington school would be another location toward that number, and the first built into the grocery chain.
It is still a proposal. Town approval has to come before completion, and 2027 is the year Leonard hopes to finish, not a date the school has been cleared to open. If it does open, paid lessons at the former Sleepy's and Pet Value space would feed the same foundation that already sends scholarship money to pools elsewhere.
