Plans Progress for Waterfront Village at Blighted East Providence Site

Reprinted from The Providence Journal

Friday, November 6, 2009

By Christine Dunn
Journal Staff Writer

Weeds, broken pieces of railroad track and a graffiti-marked retaining wall characterize the narrow strip of land off Veterans Memorial Parkway bordering the Providence River.

Across the parkway from the Metacomet Country Club, a small parking area for the East Bay Bike Path is adjacent to the 25-acre brownfield site — the former Gulf Oil petroleum storage facility from 1909 to 1984.

By late 2010, construction crews could be at work on the first phase of an ambitious development plan for the site, called Village on the Waterfront.

Four buildings, including 125 condominiums and townhouses and 40,000 square feet of retail and commercial space, are planned for the first phase of the project. Plans call for another 480 residential units by the time the entire development is completed.

In keeping with East Providence’s mandates for its waterfront district, 10 percent of the housing units will be affordable and site plans include public access to the waterfront.

There will be a public waterfront park, a fishing pier, mooring dock, and a kayak rental shop and kayak launch.

On the south end of the parcel, access to the site will be provided near the bike-path parking lot. A new roundabout is planned for the southern access point, near the point where Lyon Avenue meets Veterans Memorial Parkway. On the northern end of the site, Waterfront Drive will be extended 1½ miles into the new development.

Another change will be an addition to the East Bay Bike Path; bikers will have the option of riding on a new section of the path through Village on the Waterfront, right near the water.

The project has also been registered with the Rhode Island Chapter of the United States Green Building Council to attain Silver-level LEED [Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design] certification, according to Michael H. Hennessey, a managing member of Village on the Waterfront, LLC. It is a subsidiary of Providence Realty Investment LLC.

The local developers are working with Chevron, the owner of the parcel, to develop the site.

Hennessey and Raymond M. Uritescu, a managing member of Village on the Waterfront, LLC, are both Barrington residents. Plans have been in the works for five years and involve multiple permitting processes, Hennessey said.

“This is absolutely in line with our goals for the waterfront district,” said East Providence Planning Director Jeanne M. Boyle. “They have been very responsive to all our concerns.” She said the plans for Village on the Waterfront include “very high quality design” along with “upgrades to the city’s infrastructure.”

The $200-million project will create 2,000 construction jobs and about 80 permanent jobs, according to an economic impact analysis.

Boyle said the city’s Waterfront Commission approved the plan unanimously in August.

“We think it’s a tremendous development,” she said. “… It actually is the largest project that is being proposed in the state right now.”

Most of the 1,200-plus parking spaces for residents — at least 1,000 — will be underground, with the remainder on the surface level. More surface parking will be provided for public access and the commercial part of the development.

Boyle said that another building project is planned near the Village on the Waterfront on Waterfront Drive — a new $40-million facility for the Tockwotton Home, a nursing home and assisted-living center that is currently based in Providence’s Fox Point neighborhood.

Hennessey and Uritescu said the first condominiums and townhouses at Village on the Waterfront should be going on the market in 2011, with prices starting around $200,000. The rest of the phases will be timed according to market conditions.

But they said they’re confident that buyers will be attracted to a waterfront development near the bike path and a golf course, all located “just five minutes” from Providence.

“They’re cleaning up a blighted brownfield property” and opening up a waterfront area that has been closed to the public for many years, Boyle said. “Not all of the oil companies are this committed to redevelopment.”