A depiction of the Davol Rubber Company Plant in its heyday early in the 20th Century, as shown in the RI Historical Preservation Commission Book, Providence Industrial Sites.
Yet another incarnation for the factory long since abandoned by the Davol Rubber Company may prove it to be as recyclable as the products it once manufactured – and this time the focus is clearly high-tech. The Davol Rubber Company, as it was known at the time of the building’s construction in 1883, specialized in the manufacture of rubber, drug, surgical and dental supplies. The company, now known as Davol Inc., left the building in 1978 for new headquarters in Cranston, and still focuses its business on products for surgical specialties.
The building itself has fared less well.
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First rehabbed as a combination mall and office space in the early 1980s, Davol Square was Providence’s first attempt at an upscale urban mall. But that was not to be. Customers failed to materialize, and after many changes in the mall’s stores and restaurants, eventually the idea was abandoned.
When Talbot’s – for years the building’s sole retail tenant – vacated and moved to the new Providence Place mall last summer, Davol Square’s retail era officially came to a close. Today, the closest thing to retail at Davol Square is the United Jewelry Show’s Fashion Jewelry Mart, open to the public only in March, June and September.
But just as one door was closing
“It’s clear to me that Providence is an ideal location for dotcom companies,” said Kip Bergstrom, executive director of the Rhode Island Economic Policy Council. “They like very interactive, artsy, renaissance city-type environments, and there’s really not any space left in Cambridge or Boston.”
Davol Square’s new age
“I think Davol Square is well positioned to attract those types of companies,” Bergstrom said. “The physical environment is exactly what they’re looking for.”
Bergstrom also mentioned the building’s location relative to the downtown Providence and Wickenden Street areas as a strong selling point.
“It’s a lively environment,” he said. “It has a hum and a beehive quality.”
Judge.com, whose Providence office places IT workers, has been a tenant at Davol for a year and a half.
“We looked at a number of locations,” said Peter Salvatore, vice president of Judge.com’s national division. “Davol has easy access to 95 and 195, and that was very convenient to most of our people.”
Salvatore cited the building’s nearby parking and proximity to downtown and the water as other attractive features.
“Some of our guys take their boats to work,” he said.
And that’s not all.
“The rent was good,” Salvatore said. “We liked the idea of the building being refurbished. There hasn’t been much that we don’t like here.”
Salvatore mentioned fellow tenant bx.com as the kind of neighbor he’d like to see at Davol in the future. The Web development company relocated its headquarters to Providence last spring as part of the Economic Development Corporation’s mass-exodus.com campaign, aimed to attract Massachusetts Internet and software firms to Rhode Island.
“I’d like to see more high tech firms that want to move out of Massachusetts like bx.com,” he said. “I think that Rhode Island is in desperate need of high tech companies.”
Come August, Davol will house the headquarters of homegrown Web-search start-up Simpli.com. For Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jeff Stibel, the choice of space was about location, location, location.
“It’s close to downtown Providence and it’s close to Brown,” he said.
Important, because in addition to running the fledgling company (acquired in May by California’s NetZero, which provides free Internet service), Stibel is a Ph.D. candidate at Brown. Stibel added that the two floors the company will be leasing at Davol would provide employees with 12 times the workspace they have at their current site on South Main Street.
“Having a little bit more space and a nicer atmosphere really will allow people to enjoy where they’re working,” he said.
The decision to move had an aesthetic element as well.
“It has a certain ambience,” Stibel said of the building’s old brick, high ceilings and maze-like hallways. Part of the renovation process to ready Simpli.com’s offices involves gutting the space to reveal the factory’s original brick and hard wood beams.
“There’s a lot of potential in the building,” he said. “We have high hopes.”
