WARWICK – A five-story hotel located next to Rhode Island T.F. Green International Airport is being converted into 181 units of workforce housing, according to the New York-based developer behind the proposal.
Last operating as the The Cru Hotel, but known as the Wyndham Hotel and also the Sheraton Providence Airport Hotel before that, the 1850 Post Road property will be redeveloped in a more than $15 million project to become 151 studio apartments and 30 one-bedroom units, according to GoodHomes Co. LLC.
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The company recently received approval from the Warwick Zoning Board of Review for a dimensional variance needed to convert the 207-room hotel into apartments, with 203 parking spaces available on the 3.69-acre property. GoodHomes Co. LLC. is now waiting for a building permit to go ahead with the project, which it expects to receive in January or February. Construction is expected to last six to nine months, said David Mitchell, a partner at GoodHomes Co. and its affiliate Landing Partners LLC.
Mitchell said there’s a shortage of workforce housing in the area, and that the property has good access to public transportation, which made the hotel ripe for redevelopment into apartments. Mitchell also said that improvements to T.F. Green in recent years are “spectacular for what we want to do,” stating that tenants could include airport employees and frequent travelers.
“It’s meeting a very critical need,” Mitchell said. “You can see this being a safe, accessible, clean community that would appeal to people in the workforce, who are teachers, law enforcement, and people in the manufacturing, distribution or medical industries.”
Rents will be affordable, according to GoodHomes Co., going for around $1,000 per month.
Mitchell said “95%” of the hotel property will be repurposed as part of the “amenity rich” apartment building, including restaurant spaces that will be transformed into tenant lounges and came rooms, and a conference center that’s being converted into storage for people living there. Outdoor recreation spaces will be developed, including areas for grilling and picnics, Mitchell said. And there’s a “beautiful indoor pool and gym” that will be available to tenants, he said.
Mitchell said the workforce-geared apartments will be an asset to Warwick and the Providence area by helping entice businesses to establish here.
“In any of these communities, any business would ask – it could be Amazon, for instance – Where are our people going to live? They know their salary levels and what they can afford,” Mitchell said. “If there is no housing for that population for that company, they are not going to move in. People talk about shortages in the workforce, but one of the underlying factors is if people can live in a reasonable distance from the place of employment.”
The 137,968-square-foot hotel was known as the Wyndham Hotel before it became the Cru Hotel and then closed a few years ago while owing the city more than $860,000 in back taxes. It was previously used by the state in 2020 as a COVID-19 quarantine center. The hotel property was constructed in 1972, according to public records from the city.
The hotel property is still owned by another company called Shiva LLC, but a sale to GoodHomes Co. and its Landing Partners LLC affiliate will be completed upon the issuance of the building permit, Mitchell said.
GoodHomes Co. was established about a year and a half ago and is also developing apartments in 14 other locations around the country, Mitchell said. That includes Birmingham, Ala., and Sweetwater, Tenn., which are the two closest to completion and are expected to come online early next year.
But this is its first property in Rhode Island, Mitchell said.
The company is “a product of two perfect storms,” Mitchell said, including hospitality and senior living properties becoming obsolete due to age, and the lack of new workforce housing being constructed across the country in recent years.
“Housing built 46 years ago is obsolete, doesn’t exist and is out of compliance,” Mitchell said. “We happen to love Warwick. It’s making a great pivot into really focusing on improving itself and attracting businesses. The missing piece in the algorithm in Warwick is workforce housing. … We’re there to provide it.”
Larocque is a PBN staff writer. Contact him at Larocque@PBN.com. You may also follow him on Twitter @LaRockPBN.
