Sokoloff still patching holes in urban fabric

PLANNING AHEAD: Barbara Sokoloff, right, says that a passion she had for community planning drove her as she grew her consultancy business in the 1980s. Also pictured is Managing Associate Derek Farias. / PBN PHOTO/JAIME LOWE
PLANNING AHEAD: Barbara Sokoloff, right, says that a passion she had for community planning drove her as she grew her consultancy business in the 1980s. Also pictured is Managing Associate Derek Farias. / PBN PHOTO/JAIME LOWE

Barbara Sokoloff knew one thing when she decided to start her own consulting firm nearly 30 years ago: She wanted to help transform “holes in the urban fabric” into vibrant communities.

Sokoloff, a 72-year-old Providence native, says an inner confidence led her to start her own business, Barbara Sokoloff Associates, a planning and development firm, in 1986.

She had earned a sociology degree as an undergraduate at the University of Rhode Island, and then, while raising children with her first husband, in the late 1960s, began pursuing a master’s degree from URI in community planning by attending graduate school part time.

Calling that interlude a “typical women’s journey,” Sokoloff said she initially started work in 1970 in Warwick’s planning department as she completed her master’s degree. She became planning director in 1976, a post she held until 1984. In 1985 she began working for a developer, and more than a year later, branched out on her own.

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As she launched her own consultancy, gradually adding key employees, she said, the passion she had for community planning drove her. The work involves everything from financing to locating projects and overseeing development.

“It just seemed to me the proper direction,” she said of deciding to work for herself. “People were interested in my expertise in providing consulting services on both the planning and development side.”

Cities and towns needed planning expertise, she said, describing her clientele, while on the development side, work evolved primarily, though not exclusively, with nonprofit developers.

“It was always my interest,” she recalled: “how cities develop, what makes cities dynamic, what makes living in cities work, and what makes people want to be in cities. It’s important to have healthy cities and that’s what we’re doing in Providence. And it’s not just cities; it’s villages that provide good living environments.”

Some of the latest work Sokoloff’s Providence-based agency is involved in includes development and financing for WaterFire Arts Center, and exploring possible locations for Urban Greens, a food cooperative looking to develop a facility.

Other projects her firm has consulted on include restoring a derelict building on Pier Street in Westerly for veteran housing for Operation Stand Down, which is just concluding, and Elmwood Neighborhood Revitalization plans.

The diversity and social benefit make the work rewarding, said Sokoloff.

She did not learn from any single mentor or role model when starting out.

“I learned the development business and just decided I was going to go off and do it on my own,” she said. “I felt I could make a difference in community development and planning projects.”

Early on, Barbara Sokoloff Associates did a lot of revitalization plans for municipalities, including action plans for communities as diverse as East Greenwich, Warren and Providence. Affordable housing also has always been on the radar, said Sokoloff, the company president.

Projects for which the consultants are known include adaptive reuse of the Dreyfus Building and the Mercantile Block for AS220, the community-arts nonprofit in Providence.

“Barbara is awesome and she’s a major resource to this community in terms of the work she does and knowledge she has accumulated,” said Umberto Crenca, AS220’s artistic director. “She’s one of the most knowledgeable people in her field and one of the most diligent. She’s just a remarkable resource and has supported institutions like our own … and many others.”

Running a small business can be a challenge in terms of accessing funding sources and cash flow, Sokoloff said, but that only “forces creativity.”

“A lot of the funding sources we’ve used through the years from the federal [government] side are diminishing, but the need for the projects that we address is not” lessening, she said.

In addition to Derek Farias, a managing associate at Barbara Sokoloff Associates, and Christopher Gentile, a principal associate, Sokoloff’s son, Seth, started in September as a planning associate.

Sokoloff also has a daughter, Audrey, an attorney, and in 1991 married Dr. Herbert Rakatansky, a retired gastroenterologist, who teaches at the Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University.

Farias, who has been with the firm for eight years, says he’s always learning something new from his boss.

“Our projects are very rarely linear,” he said. “They have a lot of twists and turns and ups and downs and she’s very creative about finding solutions for problems. And she’s very persistent. If there’s a roadblock, she always finds another way to get to the end result.”

Sokoloff says versatility enables the firm to look in alternative directions in order to figure out how to make a project viable. She says she has “the ability to look at the big picture as well as the nuts and bolts in recognizing what needs to be done to get a project accomplished.”

Her advice to those who would follow in her footsteps: “Be persistent. Be good at what you do: that’s the most important thing.” •

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