PROVIDENCE – Plans to construct a 2-story, 22,000-square-foot music school and performance space on Federal Hill, with a mission of bringing creative arts to underserved communities in Providence, got approval on Tuesday from the Providence City Plan Commission, including a rave review from the chairperson.
Community Music Works, founded in 1997 and currently operating in a storefront a few doors down, made a presentation to the commission about its preliminary design for a new music school at 1326 Westminster St., a vacant lot last occupied by a gas station that’s since been torn down. Chris Bardt, an architect from 3six0 Architecture, who is overseeing the project for Community Music Works, said the school would feature a performance hall at the core of the building, surrounded by classrooms and practice space upstairs, with an administrative area, a café, and a gallery on the ground level, and more practice rooms, restrooms, a workshop, and support facilities in the basement level.
Bardt said it will be “a lively place” that “can’t remain silent” during the day, when students come to hang out, do homework, and play music, with nighttime performances held on special occasions. Bartd said important aspects of the project design include flexible spaces inside and outside of the building that can be used for impromptu practices and musical performances, including a “symbolically important” entrance facing Westminster Street that will allow indoor performances to spill onto the street.
“This is part of CMW’s mission, to be not only providing music education for the underserved community of Providence, but also extending their own music out into the community as part of the whole community-building process,” Bardt said. “One of the hallmarks of the building is to develop corners, niches, areas that allow for the unplanned and impromptu, providing spaces that don’t necessarily have to be dedicated to a single function.”
“That’s the general nature of the building,” Bardt added, “that even though that it’s very compact and tight and quite complex in terms of the many things going on there, there’s also an important part that it remains somewhat loose, and that extends to the exterior as well.”
Bardt said it would be the first all timber building of its size in Providence, which is considered a more environmentally sustainable form of construction material, compared to structures made with concrete and steel.
“That’s a certain point of pride for the organization, to be very conscious of the carbon footprint we’re putting down,” Bardt said.
The building exterior will feature a thermally treated wood finish, Bardt said.
“That’s also a fairly new material for Providence,” Bardt said. “It’s not a new material. It’s been used widely in Europe and the Pacific Northwest. It’s now making its way to the East Coast.”
The proposed building’s central entry is at corner of Westminster and Dexter streets, with a recessed area that has a steel screen in front that doubles as a sign, with the initials of the organization.
Sebastian Ruth, founder and artistic director for Community MusicWorks, said the new building will replace its current headquarters at 1392 Westminster St.
The City Plan Commission gave unanimous approval to the preliminary plan for the project, and granted CMW a waiver from submission of all state approvals at the preliminary plan stage.
City Plan Commission Chairperson Christine West called it a “thoughtful building” that will be an asset to the community.
“It’s going to be a real improvement to the neighborhood,” West said. “I live about two blocks from here, so it will affect my daily commute for the better.”
Marc Larocque is a PBN staff writer. Contact him at Larocque@PBN.com.
