Intermittently, in recent years, the state has embarked on marketing campaigns designed to lure Boston area workers here to live. The ads have shown up on billboards along Route 95 and on the radio. They have promoted many of our attributes, including our easy commute, a competitive cost of living, the beauty of our environment and our overall livability.
It seems to us that now might be a good time to start another such campaign.
Rhode Island's Market Has Changed. Developers, Builders, Investors and Sellers Must Change With It.
By Emilio DiSpirito IV License Partner | Engel & Völkers Oceanside Leader | The DiSpirito…
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The explosion of residential apartment and condominium projects in and around downtown Providence is truly astounding. Some, such as several of Buff Chace’s developments along Westminster Street, where tired and vacant properties are being restored into beautiful living spaces, are just weeks or a couple of months from opening. Along Promenade Street, Antonio Guerra’s 220-unit luxury apartment complex at the old Foundry Complex is expected to come on line later this spring.
It seems clear to us that the Providence Renaissance is back on!
What better time for the city and state’s economic development teams to come together and produce a marketing campaign to trumpet all that is happening here.
With hundreds – no, thousands – of new residents in this area should come ancillary benefits such as busier shops and restaurants, a demand for more nighttime activities and, of course, increased tax revenues.
City and state officials should invest the proper resources to tell people about it – particularly those people living in the Boston area who might find that Providence would be an exciting and affordable place to live.
Students will respond to tougher curriculum
It was refreshing news last week to see that Rhode Island – and Massachusetts, for that matter – are included in a coalition of 13 states determined to improve high schools by “significantly” raising the rigor of graduation standards.
We hope this means there is indeed a movement on to raise the bar for high school students.
And if educators throughout the country need evidence that this approach will work, they can look right here in Rhode Island, where the Education Partnership’s “Rhode Island Scholars” program is producing amazing results. To date, nearly 1,000 eighth graders from just four pilot school districts have committed to taking tougher classes in high school.
Students get it. Most of them will in fact respond when challenged. Those that might not shouldn’t be given the opportunity to take an easy way out in the first place.
