The demolition has begun.
Over ten years of planning for the Route 195 Relocation Project has finally materialized into the demolition of six buildings just outside Providence’s Jewelry District. While some are rejoicing the project is under way, tenants of the soon-to-be destroyed One Allens Avenue are finalizing relocation plans.
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According to Ann Hollands, administrator for the real estate section of the state Department of Transportation, one of the first buildings to go was a vacant building on Crary Street, across from the One Allens Avenue building. Another of the buildings already razed is a small one-story building that used to be a gas station. Three were multi-family dwellings, and one was a large brick building on Eddy Street that used to be an artist’s loft space.
“It’s the first phase of the demolition contract and we expect the second phase probably within three months,” she said.
Hollands said the state has expended just under $24 million to acquire property and around $2 million in relocation benefits for existing tenants. The entire project is projected to cost at least $320 million and will be located parallel to the Hurricane Barrier, a half-mile south of the existing highway.
The stretch of highway being relocated is 2.5 miles long.
DOT Director William Ankner said relocation of tenants has not been an easy process, but like all components of this project, was factored into the timetable.
“We’re working with the tenants and it’s hard when you’re dealing with people who don’t necessarily want to leave,” he said. “You have businesses that have been here for years, and we would like to encourage them to relocate in Rhode Island, and more importantly Providence, but we don’t really have control over that.”
The sign on the building at One Allens Avenue still reads; “Space For Rent, Inquire Within, F & D Realty” and provides a telephone number. There are no spaces available for lease though. The state owns the building now, and it will be destroyed within the next year, if the project stays on schedule.
Jonathan Savage, a lawyer with Shechtman, Halprin & Savage, LLP, represents F & D Realty.
“Whenever you displace people who are settled in their business they’d rather stay than move,” he said, “but I think the state has worked hard to accommodate them as best as they can given the circumstances.”
Jason Thompson, owner of Rag & Bone Bindery, is one of the 50 or so businesses located at One Allens Avenue. Moving into the space in May 1999, the company was there for a week before learning its space would be destroyed to accommodate the highway.
“I see Providence getting better, and I like what’s been done with the Downcity Project,” said Thompson. “So be it that we’re in the way of progress, it’s just too bad that this building has to go in particular, because it’s such an old building, and once you knock down a building like this, they’re not going to build another”
Thompson is relocating his operations to 134 Thurbers Avenue, along with many of the other businesses in the One Allens Avenue building. He said DOT will cover the cost difference in that building’s rent for two years as part of their relocation benefits package, but he plans to buy a building when that time is up. The difference in price is $7 per square foot.
Paul Pawlowski owns the interior design, landscape architecture and planning firm Pawlowski Associates. He said when the company moved into the space at One Allens Avenue in 1994, it planned accordingly, because of the possibility of relocation.
“In the process of designing this space we designed it so that our investment while it was significant would be able to go with us,” said Pawlowski, “so a lot of things we put in are transportable and translatable into another space.”
Negotiating a deal to move his office closer to the heart of the city, Pawlowski is actually working on a project associated with the highway move.
Not an official project, the concept has been dubbed the “Ship Street Canal.” It involves digging a canal where 195 is now, and putting development around it. Currently in its embryonic stage, Pawlowski projects undertaking this would cost around $40 million.
“We’re trying to work with the DOT to get funding to undertake a feasibility study to prove that it’s economic,” he said.
For now it seems the DOT is just focusing on the project at hand and concentrating on its schedule.
“Our goal right now is to keep our 195 Project on schedule and on cost,” said DOT Chief Design Engineer Edmund Parker. He said the DOT is considering Ship Street Canal as a separate project.
Ankner agreed.
“Our goal is to advertise for construction by the end of this year,” he said, “so you would start seeing real construction in terms of the runway next spring.”
“It takes time from advertising the bids to awarding the contract,” he said, “and we’re still very much on schedule.”
Ankner said different buildings have different deadlines for vacating.
“The deadline is based on when the area needs to be available,” he said. “They’re fashioned on when we need them for construction.”
