PC closing portion of Huxley Avenue to turn it into pedestrian walkway

PROVIDENCE – Providence College, in an announcement Friday, said it will close the college-owned portion of Huxley Avenue, from Eaton to Ventura streets, to traffic sometime between May 16 and June 1, and permanently turn it into a pedestrian walkway.
Entry to the college at that end of campus will then shift to Admiral Street, or from the existing entry gate on lower Eaton Street, the college said.
Providence College purchased its section of Huxley Avenue from Providence in December 2012 to unify the PC campus.
For years, Huxley Avenue divided the college, with the main portion of the campus to its west and the portion of campus on the former Chapin Hospital property (purchased by the college in the early 1970s) to the east. The purchase of Huxley Avenue allowed the college to undertake an extensive planning process called “Campus Transformation,” which took into account other projects in the area, such as construction of the Arthur and Patricia Ryan Center for Business Studies, construction of Chapey Field at Anderson Stadium, a new softball field, new parking garage and tennis courts, and the possibility of redefining the entrance to the college at that edge of campus.
With the purchase, the college said it also sought to address significant concerns about the safety of students, faculty and staff, as several members of the college community have been struck by vehicles while crossing Huxley Avenue in recent years.
Included in the 2012 purchase were portions of Wardlaw Avenue and Cumberland Street. The purchase price for the sections of all three streets was $3.84 million.
“At the time of the purchase in 2012, I said that the safety and security of our students, faculty and staff were of the utmost importance to the college. That remains the case today,” Providence College President Rev. Brian J. Shanley said in a statement. “In the 40-plus years since the college first acquired the Chapin property, we have constructed a number of residence halls, classroom buildings and facilities that house performing and visual art space on that end of campus.
“In doing so, we have seen a predictable and consistent increase in both vehicular and pedestrian traffic to and from that end of campus on a daily basis. We promised the city and the local community in 2012 that we would not make any significant changes to Huxley Ave. right away, but would wait, instead, until we had developed a more comprehensive plan. With the ‘Campus Transformation’ planning process now complete, we are ready to take this step,” Shanley said.
The College hired S/L/A/M Collaborative, a Connecticut-based architecture firm, to direct the planning process. In arriving at a final “Campus Transformation” plan, the college, working with S/L/A/M, decided that closing the portion of the avenue to vehicular traffic and turning it into a pedestrian walkway would best achieve the PC’s goal of unifying campus, while improving safety and security.
A neighborhood meeting will be held March 3 to discuss the “Campus Transformation” plan and the closure of the college section of Huxley Avenue.
PC also plans to erect signage on Huxley Avenue announcing the definitive date of the closing before it happens.
Before the permanent closure date, it is likely that the college will need to close its portion of Huxley Avenue for one or more days at a time prior to allow for construction and utility work on that end of campus.

No posts to display