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R.I. developer proposes 30-story apartment building next to Amica Mutual Pavilion – The Boston Globe
PROVIDENCE — A local real estate firm is proposing a 30-story apartment tower next to the Hilton hotel on Atwells Avenue — a project that has been nearly two decades in the making.
PRI I LP, a firm that also owns the Hilton hotel, submitted preliminary plans to the city to demolish the hotel’s parking garage and a one-story function room attached to the building in order to construct a residential building with 216 units with an eight-story podium parking deck with 248 spaces.
The hotel building at 21 Atwells Ave., which was formerly the Holiday Inn, is not part of the new construction, according to the plans. First constructed in 1966, the former Holiday Inn was the first new hotel in Providence since the Biltmore (now known as the Graduate Providence Hotel) was built in 1922.
According to PRI I’s plans, the apartments would consist of a mix of 18 studio, 108 one-bedroom units, 82 two-bedroom units, and eight three-bedroom units, according to plans unveiled during a Downtown Design Review Committee meeting on Monday night. The committee approved the preliminary plan stage of review for new construction; final plans will need to be submitted to the city for review and approval.
PRI I is a subsidiary of The Procaccianti Group, a Cranston-based real estate investment and management company. The company has been involved in the development of several key properties around the state, including the new Neon Marketplaces and the Renaissance Providence Hotel. In the plans, PRI I has dubbed the proposed building as the “TPG Tower.”
If PRI I’s plans become reality, the tower would stand more than 300 feet above Atwells Avenue, and 326 feet above the dead-end street that connects the hotel with the Amica Mutual Pavilion. It would also become a prominent piece of Providence’s skyline along Interstate 95.
This isn’t the first time Procaccianti has proposed a residential tower at the site.
Around 2005, Procaccianti had proposed “The Power Block,” a nearly $1 billion real estate investment that reached from the former Westin Hotel (now the Omni Providence Hotel), past the Rhode Island Convention Center and the AMP, and up to what is now the Hilton hotel. At the time, Procaccianti executives said the “power block” would connect a corridor of shops, restaurants, hotels, and event spaces in order to attract large conventions to Providence.
Of that hefty proposal, $150 million would go to renovating the Holiday Inn to become a Hilton, add a nationally-known steak restaurant and coffee shop, and to construct a 27-story tower with 150 condominiums. Procaccianti did renovate the hotel around 2006 and added a Starbucks store on the ground floor. The Vig, a sports bar, currently serves burgers and wings in the hotel’s lobby. But the residential tower was never constructed.
Both of the existing structures that would be demolished were built in the late 1960s and early 1970s and do not have any historical significance. The company also deemed that rehabilitation or adaption of the structures was “infeasible.”
“Given the housing shortage in the Providence area, the residential component was more viable than commercial, retail, or other types of uses,” wrote Ron M. Hadar, Procaccianti’s general counsel, in the plans filed to the city.
It’s not yet clear when the company plans to begin the demolition. Ralph Izzi, Procaccianti’s vice president of public affairs, said the firm is still in its pre-development phase. In an email to the Globe on Monday night, he declined to say what the project will cost.
“Safe to say this will be one of the most substantial developments in the last 50 years in downtown Providence since we built the 32-story residential (The Residences Providence) tower in 2007, which — at the time — was the tallest high rise built in the prior 34 years,” said Izzi.
Alexa Gagosz can be reached at alexa.gagosz@globe.com. Follow her @alexagagosz and on Instagram @AlexaGagosz.
New East Bay Bike Path bridges are open and ready for bikes
What’s it like to ride over the new East Bay Bike Path bridges? We sent a reporter to try them out.
I’ve long thought bike paths are among Rhode Island’s premier attractions, up there with the beaches, the mansions and the bay.
We like to knock government, but credit where it’s due, the state has done an amazing job building out an incredible pedaling network.
It’s clearly a priority.
At least I thought it was.
But they’ve just dropped the ball on what should have been a beautiful new stretch.
The plan was to finish a mile-long connector from the East Providence end of the Henderson Bridge all the way to the East Bay Bike Path.
There was even $25 million set aside to get it done.
Except WPRI recently reported that it’s now been canceled.
The main fault lies with the Trump administration, which is no friend of bike paths, and moved to kill that $25 million.
But it gets complicated, as government funding always does.
To try to rescue that money, the state DOT reportedly worked with the administration to refunnel it into a road project. Specifically, the $25 million will now be spent helping upgrade the mile-long highway between the Henderson Bridge and North Broadway in East Providence, turning it into a more pleasant boulevard.
That totally sounds worthy.
But it’s insane to throw away the bike path plan.
Especially for a particular reason in this case.
They’d already put a ton of money into starting it.
When state planners designed the new Henderson Bridge between the East Side and East Providence, they included a bike path.
It’s a beauty – well protected from traffic by a barrier, a great asset for safely riding over the Seekonk River.
The plan was to continue it another mile or so along East Providence’s Waterfront Drive, ultimately connecting with the East Bay Bike Path, which runs all the way to Bristol. Which, by the way, is one of the nicest bike paths you’ll find anywhere.
But alas, that connector plan has been canceled.
So the expensive stretch over the Henderson Bridge to East Providence is now a bike path to nowhere. Once the bridge ends, the path on it continues a few hundred yards or so and then, just … ends.
Too bad.
We were so close.
Most of the stories on the issue have been about the complex negotiation to rescue the $25 million by rerouting it to that nearby highway-to-boulevard project. But I don’t want to get lost in the weeds of that bureaucratic process here because it loses sight of the heart of this story.
Which is that an amazing new addition to one of the nation’s best state bike path systems has just been scrapped.
You can knock the Rhode Island government for blowing a lot of things.
The PawSox.
The Washington Bridge.
But they’ve done great with bike paths.
And especially, linking many of them together.
Example: not too many years ago, Providence bikers had to risk dicey traffic on the East Side to get to the more pleasant paths in India Point Park and on the 195 bridge to the East Bay Path.
But the state fixed that by adding an amazing connector that starts behind the Salvation Army building and beautifully winds along the water of the Seekonk River for a mile or so.
That makes a huge difference – and no doubt has avoided some bike-car accidents.
We were close to a comparable stretch on the other side of the river – that’s what the $25 million would have done.
But it’s now apparently dead.
Online commenters aren’t happy about it.
On a Reddit string, “Toadscoper” accused the state of being “complicit” with the feds in rerouting the money from bikes to cars.
And there was this fascinating post from FineLobster 5322, who apparently is a disappointed planner who worked on the project: “Mind you money has already been spent on phase one so rejecting it at this point is wasting money and also against the public interest … but what do I know? I only worked on the project as an engineer … I didn’t get into this to build more highways. I do it … to give back to communities and give them more access to their environment.”
Wow. One can imagine the state planning team is devastated. That’s not a small consideration. Good people go into government to make life better in Rhode Island, and it’s a bad play to take the spirit out of the job by first assigning a great human-scale project and then, after a ton of work, trashing it.
A poster named Homosapiens simply said, “We just accept this?”
Hopefully not.
The first stretch of the path over the Henderson Bridge is done, money already sunk.
What a shame to leave that as a path to nowhere.
It doesn’t have to happen.
Between Governor McKee and our Washington delegation, there’s got to be a way to get this done.
There’s got to be.
mpatinki@providencejournal.com
WARWICK, R.I. (WPRI) — Two people are dead and another person seriously hurt after a crash involving two vehicles on the highway in Warwick Saturday.
Rhode Island State Police said the crash happened around 1:34 p.m. on the ramp from Route 113 West to I-95 South.
According to police, a Hyundai SUV that was driving in the middle lane of the highway started to drift to the right, crossed the first lane, and then crossed onto the on-ramp lane. The car struck the guardrail twice before driving through the grass median.
The Hyundai then struck the driver’s side of a Mercedes SUV that was on the ramp, causing the Mercedes to roll over and come to a rest. The impact sent the Hyundai over the guardrail and down an embankment.
The driver of the Hyundai, a 73-year-old man, and his passenger, a 69-year-old woman, were both pronounced dead at the hospital.
A woman who was in the Mercedes was rushed to Rhode Island Hospital in critical condition.
State police said all lanes of traffic were reopened by 4:30 p.m.
The investigation remains ongoing.
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Watch 12 News Now on WPRI.com or with the free WPRI 12+ TV app.
A federal judge on Friday tossed the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) lawsuit aiming to force Rhode Island to hand over its voter information as part of the Trump administration’s push to acquire voter data from several states.
Rhode Island U.S. District Court Judge Mary McElroy wrote that federal law does not allow the DOJ “to conduct the kind of fishing expedition it seeks here,” siding with Rhode Island election officials. She added that the DOJ did not provide evidence to suggest that Rhode Island violated election law.
McElroy, a Trump appointee, wrote that she sided with the similar decision in Oregon. That decision ruled that the DOJ was not entitled to unredacted voter registration lists.
“Absent from the demand are any factual allegations suggesting that Rhode Island may be violating the list maintenance requirements,” she said in her ruling.
Rhode Island Secretary of State Gregg Amore (D) praised McElroy’s decision. He said in a statement that the Trump administration “seems to have no problem taking actions that are clear Constitutional overreaches, regularly meddling in responsibilities that are the rights of the states.”
“Today’s decision affirms our position: the United States Department of Justice has no legal right to – or need for – the personally-identifiable information in our voter file,” he said. “Voter list maintenance is a responsibility entrusted to the states, and I remain confident in the steps we take here in Rhode Island to keep our list as accurate as possible.”
The Hill reached out to the DOJ for comment.
The DOJ called for the voter lists as it investigated Rhode Island’s compliance with the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which allowed Americans to register to vote when they apply for a driver’s license.
The DOJ sued at least 30 states, as well as Washington, D.C., in December demanding their respective voter data. This data includes birth dates, names and partial Social Security numbers.
At least 12 states have given or said they will give the DOJ their voter registration lists, according to a tracker operated by the Brennan Center for Justice.
The department stated after it lost a similar suit against Massachusetts earlier this month that it had “sweeping powers” to access the voter data and that, if states fail to comply, courts have a “limited, albeit vital, role” in directing election officers on behalf of the administration to produce the records. The DOJ cited the Civil Rights Act as being intended to unearth alleged election law violations.
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