Brown administration begins move into new South Street Landing facility

Updated at 11 p.m.

Emily Gowdey-Backus

11/03/2017

BROWN UNIVERSITY RECENTLY began moving its administration departments into the newly-renovated South Street Landing facility, which can be seen from Providence's Point Street Bridge. / COURTESY BROWN UNIVERSITY/NICK DENTAMARO

PROVIDENCE – Over three move-in dates, 11 Brown University administration departments will relocate to the newly-renovated, $220 million South Street Landing facility, completing a five-year public-private partnership project, which has been watched heavily by the state and residents of the capital city.

Departments that will relocate include human resources, finance, communications and advancement. Barbara Chernow, Brown’s executive vice president for finance and administration, said in a statement the move “allows us to build a stronger sense of community within these administrative functions.”

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In all, 400-plus university employees will move to the new Eddy Street building across the river in shifts, which started on Oct. 27 and will continue on Nov. 10 and Dec. 1. As of Wednesday, Nov. 1, six of the 11 departments had transferred, according to a Brown spokesperson.

Interest was spurred by the university in 2011 when the Ivy League school built the nearby Warren Alpert Medical School, according to an Oct. 19 release. Six years later, said president Christina H. Paxson, the facility is a “vital hub of administrative activity that allows the university to maintain College Hill as an intimate, walkable space for the academic life of students and faculty” and still “fulfills our ongoing mission to help catalyze economic growth in the Jewelry District.”

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Brown, the majority occupant, has leased 136,000 square feet, or just more than half of the 265,000-square-foot former South Street Power Plant factory. Space on the College Hill campus made available by the shift will be filled in with “undergraduate-focused academic pursuits,” academic department expansions and student support, according to the release.

The South Street Landing facility is additionally inhabited by the joint University of Rhode Island and Rhode Island College nursing center which opened in September.

Emily Gowdey-Backus is a staff writer for PBN. You can follow her on Twitter @FlashGowdey or contact her via email, gowdey-backus@pbn.com.