Apartments
A new luxury apartment building under way on Wayland Avenue in Providence will demand what might be the priciest rents on the East Side once the project is completed late this year.
Monthly rents will be $2,500 at "Wayland Court," under construction on a half-acre lot at the southeast corner of Wayland and Pitman Street, according to the project’s developer, Kenneth R. Dulgarian.
The three-story brick building will include 16 two-bedroom units, replete with all the luxurious trappings one would expect for that kind of money: oak hardwood floors, cherry cabinets, chair molding, fireplace, stone countertops imported from India and balconies with wrought-iron railings.
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"When you do this for 25 years, you know what people want," said Dulgarian, who also owns College Hill Bookstore and Avon Cinema on Thayer Street and the Ambassador Apartments on Pitman Street. "We’re doing so many little extras on this thing. We’re ‘gonna’ doll the place up beautifully." He estimates the project’s cost to be $2.5 million to $3 million.
Dulgarian insists he won’t have any trouble finding tenants willing to pay the lofty rent, even though it would be more than two-and-a-half times higher than the average $953 for a two-bedroom on the East Side, the latest estimate from the Rhode Island Housing and Mortgage Finance Corp.
He won’t accept applications until the building is closer to completion, but Dulgarian says at least eight people already have inquired about the apartments, with several wanting to reserve a corner unit or plunk down a deposit.
"It’ll be the most expensive rentals on the East Side, but no place else will have this kind of craftsmanship," Dulgarian said. He also noted that the size of the apartments, at 1,200 square feet, is larger than the average East Side apartment.
So who’s going to pay $2,500 a month? Dulgarian says retirees and empty nesters are likely tenants, people who have large homes elsewhere but are attracted to city living and the convenience of a managed property.
And he’s not counting out young professionals as prospective tenants.
"I respect these young people who don’t want to be beholden to a domicile," Dulgarian said. "They’re young executives, they’re busy, they’re on the fly."
A few local realtors say there is plenty of demand for luxury apartments on the East Side.
"This is precisely the type of housing that we need on the East Side," said Sharon Steele, president of the Rhode Island Association of Realtors. "It’s step-down housing for people who don’t necessarily need huge houses anymore. That’s a market we can’t serve right now."
Steele said there might be a few East Side two-bedroom apartments with views of downtown – on Benefit Street or farther north near Prospect Park – with rents in the $2,500 range.
Each apartment in Wayland Court also will have two full bathrooms, a stainless steel garbage chute in every hallway, a laundry room with a washer and dryer and at least one parking spot, either in a small garage being built underneath the building or in a surface lot.
Barbara Vieira, occupancy manager at Bilodeau Property Management, which manages 1,200 apartments, mostly on the East Side, said the project seems to meet all the criteria that demand premium rents: ample space, nice amenities, a great location and off-street parking,
"There are very few luxury apartments on the East Side, and as far as new ones, there’s nothing," Vieira said. "So (Dulgarian) is going to rent them at that amount, I’m sure."
Dulgarian shrugs off potential competition downtown, where hundreds of luxury apartments are in the works, including the 330-unit complex being built by developer JPI just west of Providence Place mall.
"I don’t look at it as competition; I look at it as more growth," Dulgarian said. "We’re piggy backing on everybody else’s waves."
Michael Young, a principal broker at Coleman Realtors in Providence, said the new building’s East Side location would be attractive to tenants wanting to avoid the hassles of living downtown.
"The location offers an awful lot of convenience," Young said. "It will be the new game in town, and I think it will do well."
Architect Denis Samson designed the building and the contractor is Kenwood Construction Co. of East Providence.
