La Salle Square project to add to ‘power block’
There’s no shortage of office space in Providence – in fact, market reports show about an 8-percent vacancy rate citywide, and slightly more than 9 percent in Class A buildings, according to Karl Sherry, a principal at Hayes & Sherry in the city.
But last week, The Procaccianti Group announced it’s building a 22-story office tower at La Salle Square, on the site of the former Providence public-safety headquarters.
Preliminary estimates put the cost at about $200 million, said spokesman Ralph V. Izzi Jr.
Procaccianti is already heavily invested in the area. It acquired The Westin Providence last year and is building The Residences at the Westin Providence; it’s upgrading the Holiday Inn into a Hilton Hotel; and it’s about to start redeveloping the Fogarty Building, at 111 Fountain St.
At a news conference Tuesday, Thomas Niles, the company’s vice president of development, said the office tower, named The Empire at Broadway, would add value to the entire “power block” and help create a “walkable neighborhood,” with housing, hotels, retail and dining.
“It’s a lifestyle environment,” Niles said. “Another component to that is places for people to work.”
The project to be completed in 2010, will be “Providence’s largest office-space development in decades,” Procaccianti boasted in a news release. But it’s not meant to be occupied by numerous small tenants; instead, Izzi said, the goal is to have one or two major tenants that would occupy most of the space, and lease out the remainder to smaller tenants.
In fact, that’s what will differentiate Empire at Broadway from other office buildings in the city, Izzi said – the availability of large contiguous office space, which is hard to find in the city.
Procaccianti’s plan, still subject to approval by city boards, is to demolish the old public-safety building and erect a tower with 496,000 square feet of office space, 25,000 square feet of “pedestrian-friendly” retail space on the ground floor, and a parking garage for 522 vehicles.
Izzi couldn’t say how much of the parking would be used by the tenants and how much would be available to help ease the downtown parking crunch. But he said “the bottom line” is that such a large garage “is a huge shot in the arm to satisfy the city’s need for parking.”
Procaccianti bought the property for $2 million, from the Providence Redevelopment Agency. City Planner Thomas E. Deller said the deal stemmed from a purchase-and-sale agreement drafted during former Mayor Vincent “Buddy” Cianci’s administration.
An earlier plan for the site had called for a hotel, which was “problematic,” Deller said.
“In the end, we were able to negotiate a deal that we think is very good for the city. This is a good fit.”
At Tuesday’s event, Mayor David N. Cicilline praised Procaccianti for its investments downtown and said the proposed office tower would be good for the city. It will rehabilitate a blighted property at one of the “gateways to the city,” he said, it will add parking and jobs, and it won’t require any tax abatements.
“It shows the city is back on its feet,” Cicilline said.
Still, it’s an ambitious project. Sherry said Providence has lost considerable amounts of office space in recent years, as old buildings have been turned into lofts and condominiums, but vacancy rates indicate no immediate shortage.
The size of the proposed tower is also significant, Sherry said. A 30,000-square-foot space probably would be easily absorbed by the market, he said, but a 500,000-square-foot tower built on speculation probably would not.
“I would be surprised if they didn’t have a lead tenant for the project,” said Sherry, who is not involved with the project in any capacity.
Niles said Procaccianti has an “interested, large tenant” the group is working with on a “detailed basis.”
