Meeting Street opposes Allens Ave. waste transfer facility

JOHN KELLY, president of Meeting Street, shown here in 2018 at the campus in Providence, has urged the city and state to reject a proposed waste transfer facility. / PBN FILE PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO

PROVIDENCE – Meeting Street, one of the oldest and largest private schools in the city, has sent letters to the City Plan Commission challenging a proposed waste transfer facility near its South Providence campus.

The school since 2005 has invested more than $30 million in the neighborhood, a letter states, remediating a former brownfields site and constructing a LEED-certified child-development center and school building. The school plans another $15 million project this spring, said President John Kelly, less than two blocks from the site of a proposed waste transfer station.

He cited the health and quality-of-life challenges posed by the facility and encouraged the City Plan Commission to reject it.

“Please stop this now. We all know in our hearts that Allens Avenue can be so much more, as numerous coastal cities have already demonstrated; isn’t it about time we did the same in Providence?”

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The project, called Allens Providence Recycling LLC, is sought by a company based in Ohio called 487 Allens LLC. The project, if approved by the city and R.I. Department of Environmental Management, would allow construction of a transfer facility that would accept 2,500 tons a day of construction and demolition debris, commercial waste and municipal garbage. The facility would attract up to 188 truck trips per day.

Mary MacDonald is a staff writer for the PBN. Contact her at MacDonald@PBN.com.

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