Downcity is a center of controversy—but not the up-in-arms, rally-in-the-streets, hullabaloo kind of controversy. Downtown Providence has become an architectural center of quiet contention.
A Sierra Suites Extended Stay Hotel is scheduled to be built on Washington Street. The new hotel will effectively demolish the old building that houses the famed watering hole, Talk Of The Town, and two restaurants, The Cuban Revolution and New Japan. In its place will be a building whose design was recently brought before the Design Review Committee. The DRC is a group of individuals, under the banner of the municipal government, that has the influence to set the standard for prospective buildings and their developers. However, concerned citizens are invited to participate in the DRC’s meetings to voice their opinions. The developers and lawyers for the Sierra Suites Hotel brought an architectural rendering of the building to this committee and it was shot down—twice. The next meeting will mark a third attempt. It’s scheduled for March 13th at 4:30 p.m. in the 4th floor conference room of the Department of Planning and Development, 400 Westminster Street, Providence (right across the street from Finnegan’s Wake).
Now, regardless of the internal struggles the committee must contend with, their effectiveness is nonetheless to be commended. The first proposal was horrible to look at, [please see: http://www.urbanplanet.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=19543&st=0] and now, because of the DRC, that specific building will not be built. The developers have had to once again take the building back to the drawing boards, literally. But certainly a building will go up on the site—and what eventually goes there has the potential to become one of two things: the gravestone for two restaurants and one little saloon or a beautiful building that meshes with its surroundings. Let’s all pray for the latter—but can the Sierra Suites Extended Stay Hotel uphold the standards that this city has a right to put forth? And does the architecture of the building—if done well—make up for the fact that yet another hotel is going to be added to the dossier of Providence buildings?
Development in Providence is a hotbed of money, power, and speculation. In a recent issue of the College Hill Independent, Joshua Bauchner wrote an excellent article on tax exemption laws and building development. In the article he cites a community meeting in which about 30 people came together at the Olneyville Public Library to talk about the intricacies of Tax Increment Financing. The forum importantly identified, as Bauchner notes in his article, “one underlying major problem: the money generated will be spent improving infrastructure in the primarily non-residential downtown area, as opposed to the heavily residential outlying neighborhoods, benefiting wealthy developers and out-of-towners while ignoring the city’s vast majority of working class and poor residents.”
While that may seem like a subject to yawn at, you might not be yawning at the colossal building projects scheduled to go up in a neighborhood near you. Building developments are driving up rents, raising property taxes, causing major traffic redirection due to construction, intercepting pedestrian and bike pathways, as well as inviting more out-of-towners to benefit from change and improvement, rather than the people who have dedicated themselves to living in this city. Put simply, the fact that you and your friends have been dining at Cuban Revolution every Friday night for the past two years is simply not as important as a weekend convention of real estate attorneys and their need for another hotel to choose from. So while there are vital internal social issues to acknowledge and rectify, there is also the external quandary of architecture, which brings us right back to the Sierra Suites Extended Hotel and the Design Review Committee.
One thing to consider is that the physical structure of the city defines the city and as the architectural landscape of Providence changes, so too does the internal architecture of its inhabitants. The Design Review Committee acts as a translator, a middle-man, so to speak, between developers, the city, and the inhabitants. Right now, Providence is in a unique position to be able set the standards to out-of-town developers, of which the Sierra Suites Company is most certainly.
An architectural firm from Wichita, Kansas is heading the project for the Sierra Suites Hotel. It is not confirmed if they have ever been to Providence. “What can an architect from Wichita, Kansas really know about the architectural fabric of Providence?” I asked Steve Durkee, of Durkee and Brown, a local architecture firm that has spearheaded major redevelopment plans in Downtown and around Rhode Island. He laughed and then veered the conversation into a more productive topic: “If anyone can accomplish anything, it would be to raise the issue of how important good design is for Providence.” He went on to talk about the proposed building on Washington Street, stating that a local developer has partnered up with a multinational company [Sierra Suites] and that “they are not terribly sophisticated in terms of architecture—with a small ‘a’—it is not their priority. It is a formula building.”
Urban development is increasingly something you should concern yourself with, not only because you can actually affect what happens in your city but because in the end, what happens, will affect how you live in this city. Just to catch you off guard: what is going to happen to that big gaping hole at 434 Atwells Avenue right next to Lili Marlene’s? Construction hasn’t occurred yet, but when it does, you can bet it is going to be a debacle for everyone, pedestrians and drivers alike. Construction, though a vital part of our urban fabric, is depressing. The Providence Journal dedicated their front page to a fabulous article on the drilling and construction noise that resonated from Water Place Park during the summer-long construction of the GTech Building. And though the noise from the construction project on Atwells certainly isn’t going to deter happy bar-goers from Lili Marlene’s, there is going to be a low-hanging gloom in the area.
Steve Durkee said of the 434 Atwells Avenue development, “it is inappropriate scale and character— there is nothing to hang your hat on if you are the developer.” When I asked him what he meant, Mr. Durkee said that “there is no existing context to which you can say ‘yes this is the right thing to do’ because the building is surrounded by three story houses.” Another building project going up a mere three blocks away on Atwells, right where the Rialto Furniture Store used to be, “made a much greater effort to be a part of Atwells,” Mr. Durkee said. “The developers made the effort to be a part of the neighborhood.” It will be a few stories high, with five retail stores in front and eight in the back. “Let’s not fool ourselves,” said Durkee, “it recognizes scale, proportion, and the context of the neighborhood, with a finer grain of understanding.” This is in stark contrast to the proposed development next to Lili’s, the potentially epic proportions of which are addressed here.
By comparison, The Sierra Suites Extended Stay Hotel, with one small coffee shop in the front of the building and a retail store in the back, seems like they’re saving all their available space for hotel guests, rather than considering a kick-back contribution to the city. Furthermore, the coffee shop and retail space became a part of Sierra Suites project only after the Design Review Committee rejected their initial proposal.
Three successful businesses in Downtown that service those who live and work in Providence will be ousted in favor of a hotel that will cater to people who are not here to live, work and invest in the community. “Providence faces a conundrum,” another local developer said during an off-the-record conversation, “art and intricate detail attract people to this city, yet as they come in, they sterilize the city of that which attracted them in the first place.” This begs the question, could the visitors to this hotel not benefit from the two great restaurants now occupying that space? For instance, 132-34 Fountain Street, an adjacent building also set to be swallowed up by the Sierra Suites project, is considered a “non-contributing building to Downcity” and therefore within code to raze. Does this same standard not apply to the home of two popular restaurants and a local bar, which has been ignored thus far in all media coverage of the development? Is Downtown Providence simply to become bait to lure people with money to burn and no intention to stay, or should it be developed as a cultural and nightlife center for both visitors and natives alike to enjoy?