a $30 million renovation.
A newly refurbished shopping center, targeted arts district and other uses for the city’s old dump are just a few of the recent developments in Woonsocket.
Perhaps the most significant development in Woonsocket over the past year has been the $30 million renovation of Diamond Hill Plaza. Once only 30 percent occupied, the shopping center now provides a home to many national retail chains, many of which were not previously located in Woonsocket, such as Lowe’s Home Improvement Warehouse and Staples.
The Plaza, at 400,000 square feet, today is 90 percent full and also includes Burlington Coat Factory, Price Rite Grocery Depot, Super Dollar Tree and Radio Shack.
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"We saw it as an opportunity," said Anthony DeLuca, chief operating officer for the Koffler Group, which acquired the property in July 2000. "Woonsocket is a good market. It needed some T.L.C. – we felt like if we built it, the tenants would come, and that’s what’s happened."
Tom Nichols, director of economic development for the city, said the center’s refurbishment has a broader meaning than just providing an additional place for area consumers to shop.
"It was an absolute pit," he said. "The refurbishment of the Plaza shows a growth within the area. If people drive by a shopping location where only four businesses are open and the rest shuttered, they think of it as a depressed area. It’s an accomplishment for the city – it’s an acknowledgement that the city is moving forward."
The center, according to Northern Rhode Island Chamber of Commerce President John C. Gregory, is contributing to "making that whole Diamond Hill area the real retail center of Woonsocket."
In historic downtown Woonsocket, the city’s Main Street 2000 program has been expanded to include the riverfront revitalization area, Nichols said. Targeted for redevelopment next are a group of old mill buildings – including the Narragansett Knitting factory – located on Allen Street, along the river.
Nichols said the ideal future tenants of those spaces would be artists.
"The proximity to the river, River Island Park, the Stadium Theatre is something of a draw to people in the arts," he said. "The amenities are pretty good for artists."
Nichols said he has seen an increasing interest in loft spaces from artists from Boston, whose increasing rents are making it difficult for them to remain in their big city spaces.
The city has received two grants, totaling $450,000 to cap its old landfill and create a new use for the space by turning it into three or four soccer fields. Nichols said Woonsocket is exploring prospective designs for the 14-acre site near the town’s center.
The final section of the city’s bike path, which is to run next to the Blackstone River, will be designed and completed by the end of the year and out to bid.
Nichols said companies from a number of different industries had expressed an interest in relocating to Woonsocket, including a computer import/export company and a packaging plant.
Walsh and Burlingame and Check the Florist is the combination of two area flower businesses. Walsh and Burlingame has been open in Woonsocket for more than 25 years, run by Bruce and Sandra Burlingame. Last fall, they sold their business to Mitchell Check, owner of Check the Florist, which has three other locations – two in Providence and one in Seekonk.
A life-long Woonsocket resident, Bruce Burlingame remains as the Woonsocket store’s manager. He said he thinks business conditions have improved in the town. The store moved into a 3,200-square-foot space in a former mill on South Main Street in October.
"It’s becoming a much neater, cleaner city," he said. "I definitely feel that Woonsocket is on the move – it’s a resurgence in attitude. People are more proud to be living in Woonsocket than they were 10 or 15 years ago."
