PROVIDENCE – The energy of Westminster Street and the beauty of the 1902 Providence Journal building have attracted a Washington, D.C.-based hotel developer who plans to spend $35 million on a renovation.
Jim Abdo, CEO and president of Abdo Development, said he purchased the building at 213 Westminster St., along with the neighboring Kresge Building, with the intention of converting them to a hotel.
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The two buildings can accommodate about 140 or more rooms, he said.
The sale closed July 12 and involved $4 million for the former Providence Journal building, $650,000 for the Kresge Building, which was built in the 1920s, and $118,415 to resolve outstanding taxes on the two properties, according to city deed records.
The two buildings are now being held by Westminster Properties LLC.
In a phone interview, Abdo said he is now in Providence for a trip to meet with the project architect, Eric Zuena of Providence-based ZDS Architectural Design, and other project participants.
He is exploring the options available to him under city and state development incentives.
The goal, he said, is to restore the grandeur of the former Journal building and reactivate that portion of Westminster. In and around Washington, his company has invested $1 billion in hotel properties, he said. The company is best known for Hive Hotel, which is near George Washington University and has attracted national acclaim for its value.
Abdo said he wants to try to expand the success of that brand into smaller cities, such as Providence.
“What attracted me to these buildings is pretty simple,” he said. “All you have to do is walk down Westminster Street. You have to allow the Providence Journal building, particularly, to speak to you. You can‘t help but acknowledge it. It is meaningful to downtown Providence to want to see it reinvigorated.”
The building has been vacated for several years. A Boston-based developer purchased the two buildings in 2016, and cleared the buildings, before placing the properties back on the market.
The Providence Journal newspaper occupied the Italianate structure for several years before it built a more spacious, modern building on Fountain Street and moved its operations to that site.
“It was built to be a grand building, making a major statement by your state’s newspaper,” Abdo said. “What we plan to do, particularly on the lobby level of this building, is to reintroduce some of the original grandeur.”
Mary MacDonald is a PBN staff writer. Email her at macdonald@pbn.com.
