You may not think of Providence’s industrial waterfront along Allens Avenue as a hub for tourism. Yet plans are in place to change that thinking starting next month.
“The Hope,” a 49-passenger canal boat, is moving downriver to Conley’s Wharf at State Pier No. 1 under new ownership and a new name: “Providence Piers.”
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Attorney Patrick T. Conley said he and partners Al Beauparlant, Paul Campbell and Spencer Viner purchased the boat on July 8. They own the vessel under a limited liability company called SAPP Tours.
The 54-foot boat will begin taking passengers on tours on Narragansett Bay in early August, when Conley said repairs would be completed to his dock at Conley’s Wharf, located at 200 Allens Ave. Also an historian and author, Conley said he plans to lead the tours himself on occasion with the help of fellow owner and historian Campbell.
“We’ll probably be the tour guides, but we won’t pass the hat,” cracked Conley, adding that Providence Piers passengers may opt to donate their tip money to charity.
With only 4.5 feet of drag, the boat can travel as far up the Providence River as the Crawford Street Bridge, Conley said. The boat will pick up passengers from Conley’s Wharf and likely as far south as the dock at Herreshoff Marine Museum in Bristol. It may also be available for moonlight tours, he said.
The purchase of The Hope comes as the R.I. Department of Transportation begins relocating Interstate 195 between East Providence and Providence. Plans are to move the highway to connect with Route 95 farther south near South Providence.
Conley said he would like to obtain a service contract from the DOT and the R.I. Public Transit Authority to transport commuters between East Providence and Providence. He added that plenty of parking exists on his 11-acre property on the Providence side of the river, yet parking is needed in East Providence to facilitate the plan.
Dana Nolfe, a DOT spokeswoman, said the department is in the “preliminary” stages of inspecting whether alternative transportation could be used between the cities. However, “it’s much too early” to say if that alternative would be a ferry service, she said.
Still, it wouldn’t be the first time the boat ferried city commuters.
Since it launched in 2000, the boat has been used by the Blackstone Valley Tourism Council as a tour boat and a commuter ferry for the DOT, said Natalie Carter, director of operations for the tourism council.
Watercruises of Rhode Island LLC, of which the tourism council was a part owner, sold the boat to Conley and company after the expiration of its contract with the state to transport people down the Seekonk River from Pawtucket to Providence, Carter said.
Though its fleet was reduced, the tourism council will continue to sail the Canal Boat Samuel Slater, a floating bed and breakfast that sleeps 12, and the Blackstone Valley Explorer, which travels for sightseeing tours on the Blackstone River.
Both Carter and Conley declined to disclose how much was paid for The Hope, yet they said the amount was less than the assessed value of $280,000.
