Demolition and construction can go hand in hand – across the state, developers often knock down old buildings to make way for new ones.
But the proposed new Ocean House hotel and residential suites in Westerly’s Watch Hill neighborhood is a test of whether demolition and preservation can work together.
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The proposal, which received approval from the Westerly Planning Board for height and size zoning amendments this month, is for the 120,495-square-foot facility that looks to replicate the historic building. The new building will be 20,253 more square feet than the old hotel.
Included in the proposal are between 40 and 48 hotel rooms, about 20 residential suites, a 120-seat restaurant, a club room, a fitness center and a meeting space.
Charles A. Royce, owner and developer of the Ocean House, said he decided to make the Ocean House his first development project because of his love for the region and the property.
Unable to meet looming state fire code changes, the owners of the original Ocean House closed the hotel’s doors in October 2003. The land was then purchased by Connecticut-based Girouard Associates Inc., which had planned to build five homes on the site.
Shortly thereafter, a “Save the Ocean House” campaign kicked off, with residents fighting to keep the historic building on the site.
As a vacationer to the area, Royce said he was upset by the prospect of putting residential development on the site. While he didn’t lead the campaign, he supported the idea of saving the building, which he said was among the most significant structures in the area.
“It’s probably the most important landmark that you can see from the water all along the coast,” Royce said.
In the second half of 2004, the partners who would form Bluff Avenue LLC developed a consensus among neighbors and got the land rezoned for the redevelopment of the hotel.
In 2005, feasibility studies were conducted to determine whether it was best for the team to rehabilitate the existing structure or to raze and replicate it.
According to Meg Lyons, associate architect for Centerbrook Architects, it was discovered that too much work would have to be done to bring the building up to standards. The cost would have been too significant, and virtually all that would have remained from the original structure would have been the timbers inside the building.
“We had researched the building to see if we could save it, and we discovered that the previous owners had made some renovations to the building,” Lyons said. “In the process, the structure of the building was undermined.”
Many of the artifacts from the old building will be maintained, including the doors to the hotel and some of the décor. Lyons said that partners are looking for windows that closely resemble the original ones.
The old Ocean House was demolished at the end of last year, in several phases starting Dec. 21 and ending Dec. 30. The developers are now obtaining the necessary permits to rebuild.
Like the old Ocean House, the new building will have two wings. The north wing, which was added sometime after the original structure was built in 1868, will be slightly different than it was in the old Ocean House, with most of the residential suites there, Lyons said.
“It will marry well with the historic building, but we are making a distinction between old and new,” Lyons said. The building also will be situated slightly differently on the site to allow for better use of the land, she said.
Bluff Avenue partner Colin Kane, a principal at the Peregrine Group – best known, recently, for work on the East Providence waterfront – said there has been some opposition to the project, “and we’re disappointed by that.”
But several groups have supported the project, including Preserve Rhode Island’s board of trustees, which believes that portions of the project provide public benefits, aid Rhode Island’s tourism efforts and support the organization’s preservation goals.
In a letter submitted to Providence Business News this month, board Chairman Dennis Stark wrote that the board encourages the project because it proposes to maintain the site’s traditional use as a seaside hotel and as a community gathering place and preserves scenic views and access to water that would have been lost to a residential development.
Grant Simmons, a partner in Bluff Avenue, said that the merchants in the area are looking to see the Ocean House operational again. Tourists who stay in a hotel in the Ocean House’s price range generally have more disposable income than other types of visitors, such as beachgoers, he said.
“The merchants have very nice stores,” Simmons said. “I think they would probably upgrade their merchandise to reflect a more aggressive spender” if the project is built.
