The Agenda

All of Downtown is in a protected National Historic District. Should buildings like the Fogarty be protected?
I am very much aware of the fact that all of Downtown is protected. One of the assets of Providence is that we have old buildings that have not been taken down, and we also have entire blocks of the city that are still intact, which is very, very important.
Having said that, we are at the point where the city is growing again, and building again, and there is this issue about which are the buildings that deserve protection and which do not necessarily deserve protection.

To the Downcity Review Commission:

Thank you for the opportunity to make this statement. My name is Karen Jessup, and I have lived in Providence since 1970. I have taught preservation planning and urban revitalization in undergraduate and graduate programs in the US and the UK. I am also Chair of the Board of Advisors for the National Trust for Historic Preservation, an organization chartered by Congress in 1949. The National Trust currently has over 240,000 members.

All of Downtown is in a protected National Historic District. Should buildings like the Police and Fire Building be protected?
My background is real estate development, which is what I have done for the past 25 years, so I am going to make a real big picture to start out. I grew up in Southern Rhode Island on a farm. I love the open space and I love where I grew up. I feel that all of the landscape variety that we have in this state, because we are so small, is very precious. One of the surest ways to preserve places like South County or any of our rural areas, is to make sure our cities are attractive. Putting this in context, part of what ensures the richness and diversity of our state is having healthy urban areas.

All of Downtown is in a protected National Historic District. Should buildings like the Fogarty be protected?
I am not so concerned about the replacement of buildings that do not give a sense of community, or address the street, or provide what I think is a positive direction for urban development. The Fogarty Building has a raised profile that separates it from traffic on the street level. If a new building could address the issues of scale, texture, and how it responds to the buildings around it, then I think it would be appropriate to get rid of.

After the November 13 meeting of the Design Review committee, The Agenda followed up with further questions to get a better understanding of the public comment. Friedrich St. Florian and Friedrich St. Florian, who issued public comment at the meeting, spoke with us about their perspectives. Karen Jessup provided her public letter, and Friedrich St. Florian offered his understanding as an architect in Providence.

The Fogarty Building was designed by Castellucci, Galli, & Planka, an architecture firm that has been in Rhode Island for 54 years. The building’s first floor stands almost six feet above street level, and truly, it does look like a structure made out of elbows.

The Design Review Committee (DRC) met on November 13 to address two requests for demolition permits by the Procaccianti Group: one for the Fogarty Building (111 Fountain Street) and one for the Old Police and Fire Building in LaSalle Square. Though neither project hinges on the other, both are in Downtown Providence and came before the DRC at the same time. About 25 individuals attended the public hearing.

The Art Deco-style Police and Fire Building is sixty years old, while the Brutalist-style Fogarty Building is thirty-eight years old. In 2000, the Providence Police and Fire Departments moved from the old building at LaSalle Square to the new Public Safety Complex (325 Washington Street, alongside Route 95). In 2002, the Fogarty Building’s last occupant, the Providence Academy of International Studies (PAIS), left due to a leaking roof and mold accumulation, which posed potential respiratory problems for students and staff.

Deller and the Road Ahead

Providence Tomorrow — a planning process designed to create a framework for growth and preservation of Providence neighborhoods — aims to involve community members through a series of Neighborhood Charrettes, scheduled from Spring 2006 until Fall 2008. The two-year plan kicked off at an Ice Cream Social, attended by almost 200 people, at Roger Williams Park Casino on July 26th. Thom Deller, the head of the Department of Planning and Development (DPD), asked community members to generate lists of the things that they liked and disliked about their neighborhoods. The DPD passed out disposable cameras, and encouraged participants to illustrate the lists with photos. Overall, the event was quite positive, and a refreshing change from the usual mystery that shrouds city planning decisions. Thom Deller sat down with us to talk about the new open and transparent initiative, and the future of Providence.