Pawtucket’s arts district could spark city’s revival

Position: Mayor of Pawtucket

Professional background: While in college, Doyle served in the Rhode Island National Guard. After college, Doyle became an English and social studies teacher at Pawtucket West High School (now Shea High School), from 1960 to 1963. From 1964 until 1997, Doyle was a sales representative, first for two pharmaceutical companies and then for Massachusetts Envelope Company, where he worked until becoming mayor of Pawtucket in 1998.

Education: Graduated high school from St. Raphael Academy in Pawtucket
in 1956; received a bachelor’s degree in education from Providence College in
1960.

Age: 64

Residence: Pawtucket

Doyle was born in Pawtucket and has lived there all but two years of his
life. His political career began in 1966 when he was elected to Pawtucket’s
2nd Ward Committee. In 1970, he won a seat on the Pawtucket City Council, a
seat to which he was re-elected 13 times. Doyle served 27 years on the council,
including serving as City Council president from 1982 to 1987.

In 1997, Doyle made his second run for the office of mayor – he was unsuccessful
in his first mayoral campaign 24 years earlier. He was elected by almost a 2-to-1
margin, running on a platform based on re-awakening the city. Since Doyle took
office, Pawtucket has turned the tide on the urban blight that plagued the city
since its mill and manufacturing industry collapsed decades ago.

Through the creation of an Arts and Entertainment District and a concerted
effort to promote the arts in the city, Pawtucket is becoming an epicenter for
the arts in Rhode Island. The city has a plan for redevelopment of the Pawtucket
riverfront, and Doyle convinced General Motors to donate to the city a seven-acre,
$1.5 million piece of property on the Blackstone River.

PBN: Last month you were honored by the U.S. Conference of Mayors for doing
such a good job of creating an arts district in downtown Pawtucket. Talk to
me about why you started that effort and are still involved in trying to transform
downtown into an arts Mecca.

DOYLE: The city attempted back in ’97 to get the state to come in and create
an arts district here, to give us the tax incentives that support that kind
of community. We were turned down in ’97. I became mayor in ’98, and we re-applied
to the state and did receive through legislation permission to create an arts
district. So that was the beginning of me getting involved. When you get involved
with artists, you’re helping the city economically, because you’re promoting
small business. And when you promote small business you can do nothing but help
your economy. We’re in our sixth year and it’s been taking off like nobody’s
business here. We have a 370-acre arts district, the biggest one in the state.
We have eight to 15 buildings now with artists involved. For a city our size,
we call ourselves the David between the two Goliaths – little Pawtucket between
Providence and Boston.

Pawtucket seems like a model for small, former mill cities throughout New
England that are struggling to reposition themselves. The arts district goes
a long way towards showing the rest of the world that, ‘We’re doing something
new here. We’re a new kind of city.’ Is Pawtucket’s changing image something
that you work on cultivating, or is it just a happy accident?

It’s sort of a hand-in-glove effect. I mean, there’s a need. Here you have a city, as with all older industrial mill cities, with all of these mill buildings that have been vacated for one reason or another. And here are these artists that come walking in the door looking for good, cheap space. Well, you know, it doesn’t have to hit you in the face. Here you go. It’s a natural mix. The thing about our situation that is terribly unique is that you don’t need a lot of money to transform your image. You’ve got to have a good planning department, and you’ve got to have people who are willing to go out and meet people and be friendly. The artists will take care of the rest of it themselves, because word-of-mouth is your best advertising.

As we speak, the Lebanon Mills building right behind City Hall – that’s one
of the old, old buildings. Right now that building is being gutted and a Boston
developer is building 55 units of condos. She already has 22 commitments from
people to move in there. One of those commitments is somewhere in the area of
$550,000. These are some of the things that are happening in the city. Now,
you’re going to get 100, 150 people who are going to live here. They’ll be middle-aged
to older people generally, so they won’t be a drain on the school system. These
people are going to need restaurants, places to shop, entertainment. These are
things we’re looking to bring into the city. Yes, there’s going to be some drastic
changes happening to the city, but they’re positive.

How important are the Paw Sox to the city?

Critically important. It’s an image thing as much if not more than anything
else. I’ve been to places and told people I’m the mayor of Pawtucket, and the
first thing that always comes up is the Paw Sox. And it’s truly a first-class
organization and they’re a credit to the city. They do a lot of things for the
underprivileged people in the community that very few people realize. They don’t
advertise it.

Pawtucket is poised to become home to a lot of new residents who are being
priced out of living in Providence and Boston. Your neighborhoods could really
welcome a lot of folks, but I wonder whether you need to work on revitalizing
the neighborhoods and an older housing stock in the city first?

What you have in the real estate market in Rhode Island now, especially on
the Massachusetts border – there’s a boom here, and the reason is the Boston
market. Everything is being priced so high that people are coming to Rhode Island
and paying absolutely incredible prices. So we have no shortage of people wanting
to settle. We do have a problem in terms of having adequate housing for low-income
people. There’s still that problem here. We’ve worked very hard with housing
developers, and Brenda Clemet of the Rhode Island Housing Network, and with
some of our organizations here to create new housing in the city. And we’ve
done that, and are continuing to do that in some of the low-income areas, allowing
people to buy homes. So we recognize the need. I don’t think we’re filling it
as fast as we would like to fill it, but we’re on the case.

With Gov. Don Carcieri’s administration, the state’s Economic Development
Corp. has become pretty high profile – particularly for its recent work to keep
GTECH in the state and actually move them into downtown Providence. Would you
like the EDC to pay more attention to your city? Do you feel that they’re too
focused on the capital city?

Let me take you back a little bit in order to answer your question. Economic development under the (Gov. Lincoln) Almond administration was to my way of thinking a huge negative for Pawtucket because they never even corresponded with us in regard to some of the things we would have liked them to do. When the administration changed and the new people came in we had a chance to meet with them once. We kind of told them that we were hoping the relationship would improve, and that it wouldn’t take much to make it improve. At this point in time, we’re still waiting to see the results. I congratulate them for playing a part in what happened with GTECH. But I still feel that economic development tends to go from Providence south. I want to see some things change, for them to start paying attention to the Blackstone Valley and northern Rhode Island. I’ve yet to see that happen.

What is your wish list for the city, and what is your greatest fear as
mayor concerning the future of the city?

I would have to think, looking at the whole picture, that my wish would be that over the next 10 years this city will, through its arts, its economic development, through the Pawtucket Foundation – which is a business entity that we have – through it’s 20-20 Group, things that came on during my five and a half years in office – that all of this will come together and you’ll see things start to happen that will not only keep Pawtucket on the map but make it the envy of other cities and towns. That other cities and towns will come to us and say, ‘How did you do this? How did this come about?’

My biggest fear perhaps would be – and I’m not saying this to blow my own horn – but that when I leave office the person who comes in here will not be able to sustain what we’ve done over the years. Because I think it’s critically important that we continue on this ride, and I would no longer have any control over that. It would be the fear that that person would have less of an interest in sustaining this and keeping it going and that the city would suffer a relapse.

Speaking of which, what’s in your future? Would you like to serve as mayor
for another term when this one is up? Do you have any aspiration for higher
office?

I served on the City Council for 27 years prior to becoming mayor, so I had
a long apprenticeship. It’s a job that I’ve always wanted. An opportunity came
in 1997 and I ran and I won. I’m very, very happy here. I enjoy coming to work
every day and I have no desire at this point in time to find retirement. The
only thing you kind of hope is that you stay healthy, and I would like to remain
here for a few more years – I’m not going to put a number on it, but maybe another
term. I have no desire to seek higher office at this time. This is the job I
always wanted. I think you can do an awful lot as the mayor of a city of 73,000
people. Some people have talked to me about some kind of office with the state
– whether it be secretary of state or lieutenant governor, stuff like that –
but I think you’re kind of lost in the bigger ocean up there. So I’m happy doing
what I’m doing, I’d like to stay here if the people want me, and I’ll probably
like to retire out of this office at some point in time.