PROVIDENCE – A prominent city skyscraper, a pair of school buildings and an armory building that has been a subject of developmental controversy over the past year are among the properties around the city listed among the Providence Preservation Society’s 2024 Most Endangered Places list.
The society’s new list, released Wednesday, notes places of architectural, historical and cultural significance that are at risk of being lost. The places, according to the society, also promote solutions that save the sites for the betterment of the community at-large.
- Industrial Trust Co. Building, also known as the “Superman” building at 111 Westminster St. Renovations on the building, which calls for 300 residential apartments, with 20% deed restricted, 8,000 square feet of commercial office space and 26,000 square feet of retail and event space, began back in October. The society says it is optimistic that the Superman building’s period of precarity “may finally be coming to a close.”
- The Elmhurst, College Hill, Smith Hill, Washington Park and Wanskuck neighborhoods under pressure from student housing gentrification. The society says, developers are buying affordable and mid-priced single and multi-family housing units converting them into expensive rental properties, often for college students who attend Providence College, Johnson & Wales University and Brown University.
- Cranston Street Armory, the 1907-era structure on the city’s West End, where plans to redevelop the building for office, retail and recreational uses was scrapped by the McKee administration this past July.
- Asa Messer Elementary School, 1655 Westminster St., and Mount Pleasant High School, 434 Mount Pleasant Ave., where the society says if the community and other stakeholders cannot rally and force consideration of the possibilities of adaptive reuse there, the other schools would likely be demolished with less opposition.
- Providence Gas Co. Purifier House, 200 Allens Ave., a four-story building built in 1900 and is one of the only surviving projects of the Berlin Iron Bridge Co.
- Grace Church Cemetery, 10 Elmwood Ave., was established in 1834 and contains approximately 8,800 burial plots, however it now contains damaged gravestones and litter.
- Sons of Jacob Synagogue, 24 Douglas Ave., Broad Street Synagogue, 688 Broad St., and Cathedral of St. John, 276 North Main St. The religious centers are all currently vacant, facing an uncertain future.
- Atlantic Mills Complex, 100 Manton Ave., an 1880s-era mill and has been on the endangered list multiple times due to deferred maintenance and hazardous conditions, the society says.
James Bessette is the PBN special projects editor, and also covers the nonprofit and education sectors. You may reach him at Bessette@PBN.com. You may also follow him on Twitter at @James_Bessette.
