NatGrid buys Conley’s Pier

CONLEY'S PIER, a mixed-use development along Providence's Allens Avenue that included a 765-foot deep-water dock, has been purchased by National Grid, which intends to remediate the property before putting it to an unspecified use. / PBN FILE PHOTO/BRIAN MCDONALD
CONLEY'S PIER, a mixed-use development along Providence's Allens Avenue that included a 765-foot deep-water dock, has been purchased by National Grid, which intends to remediate the property before putting it to an unspecified use. / PBN FILE PHOTO/BRIAN MCDONALD

(Corrected, Feb. 22; updated, Feb. 23)
PROVIDENCE – Power utility National Grid has purchased Conley’s Pier on Allens Avenue for $4 million, former owner Patrick T. Conley said Tuesday.

National Grid plans to clean up the 4.25 acre waterfront property, which was once a manufactured gas plant, and then return it to “productive use,” company spokesman David Graves said Tuesday.

Asked what that productive use would be, Graves said the utility has not identified one yet.

The sale of the waterfront property, which includes a 765-foot deep-water dock, marks the official end of Conley’s long-stalled plan to redevelop the Providence waterfront with a mix of commercial or residential uses.

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Supported by then-Mayor David N. Cicilline and detailed in the “Providence 2020” plan, redevelopment of the Allens Avenue waterfront faced strong opposition from nearby industrial property owners and members of the City Council.

The Providence Piers redevelopment plan needed the area along Allens Avenue, now marine industrial, to be rezoned for mixed use, which never happened.

“I am profoundly disheartened,” Conley said in a statement about the sale. “If you spent over $8 million attempting to implement the city’s expensively-produced Providence 2020 plan for the Allens Avenue waterfront, a $4 million forced sale brings no joy, especially when much of that sum was paid to a bank in the form of interest and penalties.”

The sale was brokered and first announced by Peter M. Scotti Associates Inc.

Correction: The first paragraph incorrectly said Thursday.

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