Moving an historic, one-time barn to a prime location at East Providence’s developing Rumford Center project was important to developers for two reasons.
First, the former barn – which is about 160 years old and is the oldest structure on the 8.3-acre parcel – is now situated to be the development’s centerpiece.
Second, the January 2008 move also cleared the way for the final stage of construction.
Now developers must decide how to use that cleared land where, in a slumping housing market, more apartments might not be the best use.
“We have created – as a result of moving that one building – a three-acre buildable pad, a three-acre site where would could put up to another 45 residential units or an up-to 40,000-square-foot office building,” said Colin Kane, principal in the Peregrine Group, which has partnered with Kirkbrae Development Corp. on the project.
The other 82 apartments that are now being completed range from studio to two-bedroom units and will average about 1,500 square feet. Their prices will range from $1,200 to $2,000 a month, Kane said. Office space will lease for about $20 per square foot.
The project got its start in 2006, when PK Rumford – the partnership between Peregrine and Kirkbrae – purchased the land, located at Newman and Greenwood avenues. The developers are spending about $40 million on the project. Of the 13 buildings that were on the property, 10 are now being renovated. Those renovations began during October 2007 and the office space will be ready for tenants by June. Final construction will be completed in September.
About 70,000 square feet of office space, 7,500 square feet of retail and almost 200,000 square feet of residential space are planned for the total 275,000 square feet. But those numbers might change, depending on what the developer decides to build on the cleared parcel.
The developer is also gearing up to lease the retail component, which will be brokered by Hayes & Sherry starting in March. The retail development’s location across the street from the Rumford Post Office lends it to smaller, “shingle-hanging” businesses, Kane said.
“We view this retail as being café, dry-cleaner, florist-type retail, neighborhood retail,” Kane said. “It’s really here to serve the folks that will be in our complex as well as outside in the neighborhood.”
Each retail unit will be about 1,500 square foot, he said.
“The great thing about the property is that the building – by the luck of history – fronts the street so it doesn’t look like a Wal-Mart parking lot when you drive by,” Kane said. “From the street perspective, all you see are buildings. You don’t see this large parking area.”
The design of the complex differs from many of the larger mill projects, too. “Whatever manufacturing process they used here resulted in two large buildings and then all these smaller buildings,” he said of the 10 historic buildings that make up the development. “So it’s not just this monolithic building.”
Because the complex didn’t operate as a “heavy-duty” manufacturing site, the sizes of those buildings vary, Kane said. It’s also stuck in the middle of a largely residential neighborhood and is on the National Register of Historic Places.
“It’s kind of a weird quirk of history that this large mill complex is in a very nice, single-family neighborhood,” said Kane.
For the Rumford Center, each of the 10 buildings will be put back into uses that will be based on the shapes and former uses of each.
“I think [the mixed-use development is necessary] because the location warrants it, because to a large extent it was mixed-use when we bought it,” Kane joked. “There was a junkyard. There was a warehouse and a manufacturing use. The Providence Engineering Society had their offices in there.” •
