Cityscape

‘A disaster for the visual eye’: City Hall slated for badly needed repairs to roof, metalwork

By Katy Pickens Planning & Preservation Writerkpickens@ppsri.org

Providence’s City Hall building is in desperate need of a refresh. The iconic slate roof of 25 Dorrance Street hasn’t seen a thorough repair in decades, and some of the cast iron bones of the roof date back to the building’s construction in 1878. This wear and tear is beginning to show inside and out, with rust streaking the roof’s metal work and water damage creeping into the building.

At the June 9 meeting of the Downtown Design Review Committee, DBVW architect Benjamin Lueck presented a pre-application proposal for repairs to the dome and the front sections of the roof. Members of the DDRC were in complete agreement that significant work needs to be done on the building. 

Before the repairs can begin, DBVW will have to complete their drawings, cost estimates, and plans. Bidding for the project is tentatively scheduled for January 2026, with construction beginning sometime next year.

“This is a proposal by the City to repair the slate and the flat roofing systems on the building’s dome and two front pavilions, repair the building’s gutters, and restore all decorative metal work,” said Christopher Ise, a principal planner for the City. “It’s the first stage of a phase of a larger plan to restore the remaining roof systems, masonry, and windows.”

Repairing the roof of City Hall is an essential first step to get the building back in shape — it has been leaking water, damaging assets such as the City’s archives, for years now. Located on the top floor of the building, City Archives has felt the impacts of water leakage significantly. 

“In some cases, these are original materials dating back to the 1870s. Most of the slate shingles are original. Metalwork is original, but it’s complicated, and that’s actually a kind of crux of what I’m here to talk about right now.”

“We’re all familiar with the building in its current state, as having very prominent, very elaborate decorative sheet metal on the roof. One would go as far as to say it’s one of the defining features of the building,” Lueck explained.

“It turns out that the sheet metal that we see today is not original, and this is something we were not aware of until we really kind of dug into the sequence of historic photos in our research and our kind of hands-on observations on the roof,” he continued

Keating Zelenke
Library of Congress, 1906

Cast iron framing, original to the building, can be found underneath a copper covering, applied years later to repair the roof. “We believe that that copper was added later, starting around the 1910s, and it was done kind of piecemeal,” Lueck said.

Keating Zelenke

Some recent work by a previous consultant exposed a long segment of the original cast iron. Some of the exposed cast iron in other sections of the roof had been painted light green at some point in the 1980s to imitate the patina of aged copper. “As we dug into the building, we realized this is actually kind of a tip of the iceberg situation,” Lueck said.

Crucially, much of this metalwork on the roof is not weather-tight, allowing water to seep into the building. DBVW’s proposal focuses largely on repairing and sealing the roof, as well as fixing drainage on the roof.

The last repairs to the building were completed in the late 1970s. The roof was a problem area for the building even then.

Repairing City Hall is bound to be an expensive endeavor. The Providence Journal reported that $10 million from the City’s budget has been allocated to repairs for the building. The masonry work will cost roughly that much, but WPRI reported June 10 that Phase 1 of repairs to the building will cost $40 million.

Though there was no formal vote, the DDRC expressed support for the plan and confidence in DBVW’s design and expertise. “We all can recognize it’s falling apart. It’s a disaster for the visual eye down in Kennedy Plaza or anywhere else,” DDRC Chair Chris Marsella, who also serves on PPS’s Board of Advisors, said. “It’s embarrassing.”

Lueck emphasized that they won’t be able to perfectly match the details of the roof, but will strive to be as true as possible to the original design. “It’s a shame to see what has already been lost. I think it makes it all the more important to go back to that first architect,” Lueck said.

A date for a formal vote on the application has not yet been set.

Keating Zelenke