North Smithfield approves Branch Village concept

NORTH SMITHFIELD – Town councilors in North Smithfield this week approved a conceptual buildout scenario for Branch Village – a section of the town on which a special redevelopment task force has been working since January 2007.
The buildout model, prepared by Pare Corporation, is intended as a “dynamic spreadsheet tool” for the town planner to use in estimated impacts of “proposed development in relation to the larger buildout vision,” John Flaherty, the task force chair wrote in an e-mail last week.
The task force is charged with creating a walkable, mixed-use village out of the sprawl development at the intersection of Great Road and St. Paul Street.
Flaherty said the approval of that possible buildout scenario “clears the way to present a mixed-use zoning ordinance that will allow implementation of a vision that fits the capacity of the district.”
If we’re successful “the tax base would increase,” Smed Blair, vice president of real estate and development at Brickle Realty Group and a member of the task force, told Providence Business News during August 2007. “And the village would begin to have an identity instead of being a drive-through.”