Finding path back to prosperity

SPICING THINGS UP: Bachata Tequila restaurant opened this year, filling an empty storefront on the central section of Main Street city leaders are focusing on. / COURTESY NEIGHBORWORKS BLACKSTONE VALLEY
SPICING THINGS UP: Bachata Tequila restaurant opened this year, filling an empty storefront on the central section of Main Street city leaders are focusing on. / COURTESY NEIGHBORWORKS BLACKSTONE VALLEY

Editor’s note: This is the first in an occasional series looking at efforts to preserve and revitalize the state’s downtown areas.
Ruarri J. Miller’s search for a site to build apartments for aspiring young businesspeople took him to old mills in Providence, Pawtucket and Central Falls.
But ultimately Miller chose downtown Woonsocket, not just for its real estate, but for the enthusiasm and eagerness community leaders showed toward outside investment and his unconventional idea.
“The most appealing thing is the people who have rallied to support the project, people I wouldn’t have access to if it was somewhere else,” said Miller, who is currently lining up pieces and financing for The Apiary, a novel housing-continuing education-incubator concept. “It was really the Woonsocket natives who are coming back that is propelling it past the ideation stage.”
The eagerness to welcome outside investment in downtown Woonsocket, where the path back from the loss of heavy industry is as long as any mill town, has grown since the recession in public and private efforts to stem years of vacancy and neglect.
What’s less clear is how much progress these campaigns have actually made or how much residents should expect them to make in the immediate future.
In the nonprofit sector, a joint initiative between Neighborworks Blackstone River Valley and the Local Initiative Support Corp. has targeted resources toward Main Street.
In 2007, LISC’s Rhode Island office, which helps local community nonprofits finance and plan projects, began focusing efforts on Woonsocket and Providence’s Olneyville neighborhood. Two years later, LISC upped that Woonsocket investment by funding a market study by national consultants of downtown that resulted in the “Main Street Livability Plan” that is now the city’s blueprint for the area.
“In Woonsocket, people really saw Main Street as both an opportunity and a weakness,” said Carrie Zaslow, program officer for LISC working on Woonsocket. “What we heard from residents is they really want to see something happening on Main Street. A lot of work has been done and people committed, but they were not completely sure about the way.” From the market study came the recommendation to hire a Main Street coordinator to organize businesses along the corridor and plan events. LISC secured a $100,000 grant for the part-time position, filled by Shane Culliton of Neighborworks, who has put together events like the summer “storefront stroll” and helped with shop beautification projects.
It’s also recently painted the windows of empty storefronts with images evoking the “Polar Express” holiday train rides from the nearby station.
After the LISC funding ran out, Neighborworks secured a grant that is expected to pay for the Main Street manager through this coming spring, but after that the future of the position is unknown.
In many places, Main Street managers are funded by thriving merchants associations, which Zaslow said is the ultimate goal for downtown Woonsocket.
As Main Street Woonsocket is unlikely to draw any high-end retailers from the malls anytime soon, the city has placed its faith in the arts and small, independent craftspeople taking advantage of its low rents, to provide a unique draw for visitors.
That strategy builds on two anchors at either end of Main Street, the Stadium Theatre on the north end of downtown and a cluster of destinations around Market Square to the south that include the Museum of Work and Culture and Le Moulin arts complex. Neighborworks also has plans to convert the former Mulvey’s Hardware building next to the museum into apartments above first-floor retail space.
The challenge for the city has been trying to fill in commercial spaces between the theater and Market Square, as the area near the train station and City Hall remains plagued by vacancies. “There are still a lot of vacancies on Main Street, but we’ve got Market Square on one side with restaurants and arts and on the other side is the Stadium Theatre,” said Garrett Mancieri, a Realtor at Gateway Realty and recently elected city councilor. “So we have anchors and now it is up to the city to rent out in between. We hope arts will be the draw to get people there.”
Although some sections of Main Street still have vacancy rates greater than 50 percent, there is activity downtown.
The Stadium Theatre this past fall reached a deal to buy the “Stadium” office building next door, with plans to expand operations there, according to the Valley Breeze newspaper.
According to LISC, 12 new businesses have either opened or moved to Main Street this year, including a Mexican restaurant, coffee shop, Mancieri’s Gateway Realty, a law office and four new places in Le Moulin.
Then there is Miller’s plan for The Apiary, which could provide a significant boost for Main Street by attracting a large group of young people to the neighborhood.
Miller has set his sights on the Bernon Worsted Mill complex just across the river from Main Street and site of a faltering condominium conversion called Bernon Mill Estates.
Only one of the three gray stone mill buildings on the 4-acre property, built between 1850 and 1930, have been renovated and the complex is currently owned by Milbury Credit Union, which took it back from the original developer after the housing bubble burst.
Mancieri, the listing agent for Bernon Mill, said the credit union is now renting out units in the complex temporarily to generate income and interest while finishing other units and hoping demand for condos picks up. Mancieri said the credit union would also consider selling the property.
Miller is looking to line up financing to buy the mill and multiple storefronts on Main Street to add a retail component to The Apiary, which would provide dense workforce housing for young employees of companies like CVS, while providing continuing education programs. Miller is working with LISC, among others, on finding financing, which would likely include a mix of tax credits and private lending.
While entrepreneurs and nonprofits work on Woonsocket’s private real estate, the city is targeting infrastructure improvements to make the whole downtown more livable.
First among them is extending the Blackstone River Bikeway from its current terminus at Hamlet Avenue all the way into downtown. (Eventually the path is planned to extend to the Massachusetts line and on to Worcester.)
Further down the road, the city is looking at reworking the somewhat confusing traffic patterns in downtown and restoring two-way traffic to many one-way streets, similar to what has been done in sections of Providence and Pawtucket.
This month, the Rhode Island chapter of the American Planning Association recognized the city’s Main Street revitalization efforts with the state’s annual award for outstanding neighborhood planning.
But the city is facing significant fiscal problems, with bankruptcy a serious possibility a year ago and a state budget commission now in control of local finances.
Outside of the city center, the migration of chain retailers out of shopping plazas on Diamond Hill Road – including Wal-Mart and Lowe’s moving to North Smithfield – has put a dent in the tax base.
Vacancies on Diamond Hill Road were a subject in the recent mayoral campaign won by former state Rep. Lisa Baldelli-Hunt, who has since eliminated the position of economic-development director.
Ainsley Morisseau Cantoral, director of resource development at Neighborworks Blackstone River Valley, said there is progress on Main Street, even if it is too gradual for most to see.
“We have really seen the merchants grow in involvement and that is one of the things I like to see happen,” Cantoral said. •

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