PROVIDENCE – A yearslong legal battle the University of Rhode Island has waged over an unfinished Greek cultural center on the Kingston campus has taken a new twist after a ruling from the state’s highest court.
The R.I. Supreme Court ruled in a 3-2 decision earlier this month that a lawsuit URI and the R.I. Council on Postsecondary Education filed against the Hellenic Society Paideia be postponed while arbitrators attempt to resolve the land dispute.
The decision overrules a Superior Court order that had allowed URI’s lawsuit to proceed.
University officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday. A lawyer for the Rhode Island chapter of the Hellenic Society Paideia did not return a phone message. Ilias Tomazos, president of the Rhode Island chapter, also did not respond.
The dispute dates back to 2011 when the Hellenic Society had begun construction on a cultural center on a parcel between the URI Fine Arts Center and a large parking lot at the northeast corner of the main campus in South Kingstown.
Originally, the university agreed to lease the parcel at no cost for 99 years and the Rhode Island chapter of the Hellenic Society was supposed to build a 22,000-square-foot center that would house URI’s Hellenic studies program and the Center for Humanities. The lease gave the society the option to extend the agreement four additional 99-year terms.
At the outset, the society said the project would cost about $5 million and money would be raised as the construction proceeded. That didn’t happen, and the money quickly dried up.
Workers laid the foundation, dug a hole for an amphitheater and erected concrete pillars, but the work had stopped in 2012 and never restarted.
Over the years, the matter has become somewhat of a running joke on campus, with references to the unfinished building as the “Greek ruins” and the long-running dispute as a “Greek tragedy.”
The official URI campus map still delineates the area as “under construction or renovation.”
By November 2012, URI notified the Hellenic Society it was terminating the lease, and in 2013, the university demanded that the society return the property to its previous condition.
When the society refused to concede a breach of the lease and wouldn’t restore the property, URI and the R.I. Council on Postsecondary Education, which holds the titles for URI properties, went to court.
The society then sought to stay that litigation, arguing that the lease required all disputes be resolved by arbitration. The Superior Court denied that motion, which appeared to deal a severe blow to the society’s case.
Then a split Supreme Court overruled the previous decision, sending the two parties back toward arbitration.
Justices Francis Flaherty, William P. Robinson III and Gilbert V. Indeglia decided to stay URI’s litigation. Chief Justice Paul Suttell and Justice Maureen McKenna Goldberg dissented.
William Hamilton is a PBN staff writer. Email him at Hamilton@PBN.com.
