stands Frank Shea of the housing
corporation
Depending on what kind of day it is, Olneyville can look like a kingdom of possibilities or a forgotten urban wasteland.
Frank Shea will excitedly speak of how magnificent the area can be.
Shea, executive director of the Olneyville Housing Corporation, is optimistic because of a plan he recently submitted to Rhode Island Housing and Mortgage Finance Corporation for its Revitalization Grant.
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The plan, which he carries with him, is a 200-page document called "Only in Olneyville." Put together by a group of area non-profits dubbed the Olneyville Collaborative, it is a document that Shea calls his Bible.
Thanks to the Rhode Island Housing’s Revitalization Grant, many area organizations and residents are verifying the equation that trouble shared is trouble halved. In most cases the trouble in question is that neighborhoods have become uglier and dirtier over the years because of neglect.
Rhode Island Housing handed out $400,000 among eight different communities to come up with revitalization plans to improve their neighborhoods.
"One of the best benefits of this program is the partnerships that have formed," said Amy Rainone, policy and planning manager of Rhode Island Housing. "There are so many groups working together and with the municipalities. It’s just bringing people to the table that wouldn’t normally be at the table together."
Another spokesperson for RI Housing, Chris Barnett, said Olneyville Square in Providence and Barton Street in Pawtucket and Central Falls are two of the most deserving areas to benefit from the RI Housing grant.
The Olneyville Collaborative, consisting of 11 groups, including the Olneyville Housing Corporation, Habitat for Humanity, St. Teresa’s Church, and the Olneyville Merchant’s Association, submitted a plan for neighborhood revitalization to Rhode Island Housing and Mortgage Finance Corporation focused on building on what’s already there.
It is an area heavily dominated by minorities, said Shea, and instead of trying to attract well-known chain stores, the group is trying to attract boutique stores that cater to the needs of the community.
"We need to build on our assets and try not to give people the same options they have in Cranston, for instance," he said.
Mike Solomon, owner of Wes’s Rib House and president of the Olneyville Merchants Association, agreed.
"I couldn’t have had the same amount of success here if I had put up a Chili’s," he said about his establishment. Located on the backstreets of Olneyville on the second floor of a factory building, Wes’s has been in the same location for over 20 years.
"It just shows how viable businesses can make it anywhere in Olneyville," he said.
By improving on what is already in the area, Shea said the first initiative is a storefront improvement program where the shops in the area will be renovated with a recent $25,000 grant from the Providence Plan. Cosmetic renovation will then make the area more welcoming to pedestrians, which will make the area more attractive to new businesses.
"It’s like leveraging," said Solomon.
Improving façades on existing buildings is an initial priority also for the Blackstone Valley Community Action Program, which worked on a comprehensive plan for Barton Street in Pawtucket and Central Falls.
"There is a foundation for good, solid commercial improvement here," said Vincent Ceglie, executive director of the Blackstone Valley Community Action Program, who helped put together his area’s plan.
By improving the looks, Ceglie said, they would cater to more than just the large Hispanic and Portuguese populations in the area.
Working together with groups like the City of Pawtucket Planning Department, the Pawtucket Community Development Center, CrimeWatch and Progresso Latino, the team wants to eliminate the vagrancy and prostitution in the area as well.
Ceglie said the group’s plan looks at all of the area’s ailments as being interconnected, and by examining solutions related to one another, the problems will be easier to fix. A business resource center is in the works to give advice to merchants about rehabilitation of their stores, advice on legal matters and use of technological equipment.
"This is going to take a long time," he said.
