PROVIDENCE – A Philadelphia firm is planning to revitalize a former manufacturing facility built in 1900 at 50 Sims Ave., in the Woonasquatucket River Corridor, into a business hub that will support the city’s creative community.
Real estate development group Scout recently signed a master developer agreement with the property owner, the Providence Redevelopment Authority, to renovate and lease out space in the 110,000-square-foot building, which is currently partially occupied by Revival Brewery and its affiliate, Lost Valley Pizza & Brewery. The brewery, which occupies 10,000 square feet of the building, will stay as an anchor tenant, according to city officials and Lindsey Scannapieco, managing partner and co-founder of Scout.
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“We are excited to build on the great energy and space of Revival Brewery and Lost Valley Pizza which are beloved – and delicious – anchors for the building,” Scannapieco said. “We envision 50 Sims as a center for affordable workspace for the creative community and a catalyst for local job creation.”
The redevelopment will not be completed on a fast-paced scheduled, however. The 2-story brick building, with high ceilings, will be redeveloped over the course of several years, Scannapieco said.
“We believe it is important to have an intentional development process that matches tenants to spaces that suit their needs and an iterative and slow approach that can grow organically over time,” said Scannapieco, describing it as “incremental development” with a focus on meeting neighborhood needs and providing job creation. “We put a lot of work into the process of navigating the right person for the right space.”
Scout, which was founded in 2011, was behind a similar project in Philadelphia, where it turned a 340,000-square-foot, historic vocational school into Bok, a home for more than 250 business tenants, ranging from a 73-square-foot jewelry-making business, to a 15,000-square-foot fine arts school that offers a Master of Fine Arts degree program, Scannapieco said. Other tenants at Bok, which has been built up over the past seven years, include a beauty product manufacturing company, a daycare, a tattoo parlor, ceramic artists, glass blowers, a wellness clinic, furniture designers, screen printers, architectural studios, a rooftop bar, and a vegan cheese production facility, she said.
Scannapieco declined to disclose the financial terms of the master lease that Scout reached with the Providence Redevelopment Authority for the 50 Sims Ave. building. City officials were unable to provide that information on Thursday.
“The idea is that the building will be able to not only be a place for energy and activity and interest and jobs, but also will be able to generate income, which supports our team,” Scannapieco said. “We get involved. We’re not just developers, in that we are very involved in the operations and property management side.”
The 50 Sims. Ave. facility is located close to the 60,000-square-foot Farm Fresh Food Hub that opened in November 2020.
The Providence Planning Department announced Wednesday via Twitter that a master developer agreement was reached with Scout, stating that the city is “so excited to advance our collective vision” for the underutilized property, explaining that it was identified as “a catalytic redevelopment site” in the city’s master plan a few years ago.
“The [city], through the [Providence Redevelopment Authority] and [the Providence Planning Department], will continue to be a partner with Scout and will remain engaged with 50 Sims and with the redevelopment of the entire Woonasquatucket River Corridor,” according to the announcement.
Scannapieco said Scout is already in talks with “some potentially exciting” tenants.
“We’re really excited and look forward to growth,” Scannapieco said.
Correction: An earlier version of this story gave an incorrect number on the address of this building.
Marc Larocque is a PBN staff writer. Contact him at Larocque@PBN.com. You may also follow him on Twitter @LaRockPBN.
