Since my initial call for action on Providence’s Allens Avenue waterfront, published in the Providence Business News in March 2005, I have waited patiently like Evangeline, Longfellow’s tragic heroine. Hopefully, her fate will not be mine.
Now that the City Plan Commission and the City Council are finally about to decide what to do with Providence’s greatest and most underutilized asset, I have submitted to them and to PBN an outline of the salient aspects of my five-year fight to turn an eyesore into an economic engine creating jobs and expanding the city’s tax base while giving the people full access to their harbor. The summarization of my views, succinctly stated, is as follows:
• The one-mile waterfront strip from Collier Point Park to the foot of Thurbers Avenue east of Allens Avenue at the old Burgess Cove has an assessed valuation that only generates $776,000 of tax revenue. Of this amount, at least $100,000 is improperly assessed because the city is including pre-platted, underwater land over which the state has assumed control under the Public Trust Doctrine.
• There are only two marine-related businesses along that one-mile strip (Sprague Energy and Promet Marine Services). Between them they employ less than 80 workers, most of whom are not residents of Providence. Both of these companies would be allowed to continue their businesses regardless of a change in zoning.
• Promet, the leader of the opposition to the proposed Comprehensive Plan, bases its opposition on the job issue. In reality, Promet and Narragansett Improvement Co. both fear that their businesses would be curtailed should the public and more viable uses be admitted to the waterfront.
• This blighted landscape and waterfront is a sorry sight for those who approach the Renaissance City along Interstate 95 from the south.
• Since 1994, when the present W-3 Marine Industrial Zone was created, not one single business allowed in that zone has been established.
• The residential condo component of my plan was suggested by the city. My original plan had a much more modest mixed-use residential on the upper two floors of an extended-stay hotel. Those residences were not to be condos, but rental apartments.
• My main goal is to provide public access to the waterfront, an amenity that residents of the Southside have been denied for approximately 100 years. This is why I have promoted public fishing, dinner boat tours, a ferry landing, a diner, a tiki bar, concerts, carnivals and ethnic heritage festivals.
• I invite all readers to visit the Allens Avenue strip. Your view of this drab waterfront will be worth a million words. •
Patrick T. Conley is an historian, author, attorney and real estate developer.
(Eds. note: An ordinance before the City Council would declare 590 acres along Allens Avenue as “blighted and substandard.” Under the ordinance, the Providence Redevelopment Authority would have the power to take any property by eminent domain. The city has been exploring growing the Port of Providence. Some businesses owners who fear they would be forced to leave the area oppose the plan, as does the U.S. Department of Energy.
The City Plan Commission was scheduled to hold a public hearing Dec. 15. The City Council must also give its approval.
Conley supports the plan’s vision. He has proposed a mixed-use development on Allens Avenue called Providence Piers. Last summer, frustrated by opposition from some businesses, he informally placed the waterfront property on the market.)
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PUBLIC WATERFRONT GETS ANOTHER LOOK
Last night, the City Plan Commission approved the Waterfront Plan, but not before it voted to removeds the Fox Point waterfront from the decision. The issue of whether Shooters’ site should be for public use or residential and hotel use prompted several unsuccessful motions, finally resulting in the CPC tabling the issue for a later meeting.
Prior to the voting, five commissioners expressed the belief that the Shooters site should be preserved for public use. However, the issue of removing residential and hotel use from the Fox Point parcel became mixed up with removing hotel use from the Allens Avenue area of the waterfront. The five of seven commissioners, who expressed support for a public waterfront were Sam Limiadi, Meredyth Church, M. Drake Patten, Council President Designee Bryan Principe and Vice Chair Harrison Bilodeau.
Thanks to them for speaking up for a vision of an active, public waterfront—the signature of a great city.