NEWPORT – Salve Regina University, city officials and area neighbors have finalized an agreement to build a new student residence hall on the corner of Shepard and Lawrence avenues near the William Watts Sherman House after years of contention about the project.
Salve announced Monday that the new $27 million facility will provide housing for 205 undergraduate students, with university spokesperson Julia Miller telling Providence Business News the project will be financed by bonds. Salve says construction is scheduled to start this coming spring with the plan to welcome students into the new dorm facility in the fall of 2026.
“We are grateful to our neighbors and the city of Newport for this agreement and believe that the new residence hall will be a wonderful addition to our campus and to the local community to which we’re so closely connected,” Salve President Kelli J. Armstrong said in a statement.
Salve and the city had butted heads over the dorm plans since 2017. university officials stated at the time that the project, proposed on Salve property between Ruggles and Victoria avenues, was in-line with zoning requirements and had a design befitting the Bellevue Avenue-Ochre Point/Cliffs neighborhood’s historic character. Additionally, Salve said, the project would generate 300 jobs and increase its payments to the city by $141,000.
Salve also said Monday that the new dorm would relieve some of the city’s housing shortage, with students living in the Salve-built facility instead of renting off campus. But the residential halls over the years raised objections from the city’s Historic District Commission and some members of the public, as well as legal challenges.
Two years ago, the city’s Zoning Board of Appeals
approved the Watts dormitory facility, but not the Wallace Dormitory petition for a dorm building on Victoria Avenue. Miller told PBN on Monday that the agreement was reached on the new hall’s proposed design, Salve agreeing to add sidewalks to Shepard Avenue for pedestrian safety and the university changing plans from having two residential buildings down to one.
In lieu of the second dorm building, Salve says the Victoria Avenue property is being earmarked for potential redevelopment as a natural-grass athletic field. Miller said an athletic field is a “wonderful option” for that property that will serve Salve’s and the city’s goals.
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 X at @James_Bessette.
