Last November, the Old Temple Beth El building in Upper South Providence was donated to the Center for Southeast Asians (CSEA).
Old Temple Beth El, located at 688 Broad Street, has been on PPS’s Most Endangered Places List 10 times since 2010.
Carolyn Rafaelian, the founder and former CEO of the Alex and Ani jewelry company, had owned the site for years. “Temple Beth El is a special building that needs a very special concept to bring it back to life to once again serve the community,” Rafaelian told Providence Business News in November. “I am so pleased to donate this unique building to such an important project, and to the Center for Southeast Asians, an organization with a proven track record of providing needed services and improving lives.”
Architects Banning & Thornton designed the synagogue, which was constructed in 1910-11, and the temple was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988. For decades, the synagogue was a touchstone for the Jewish community on Providence’s South Side. However, the temple shut its doors in 2006 as the Jewish population in the surrounding neighborhood dwindled.
Today, the building is on the cusp of a new beginning.
Just a three-minute drive from their current office, CSEA Executive Director Channavy Chhay said she hopes the synagogue building will help expand the services, programming, and community gatherings that the organization can offer.
“We are so grateful for this wonderful gift from the Alex and Ani creator and founder, Carolyn Rafaelian,” Chhay said. “With any blessing comes hard work… [we are] staying focused to put the building together. And that’s our challenge of taking on a historical building.”
“My goal for our community at the Center for Southeast Asians is to focus on delivering this building, restoring it to its original glory as much as we can, and modernizing the building so that people can fully access” and enjoy the premises, she continued.
Chhay said the organization plans on raising $16 million for the renovation project.
“Our vision for the building is, first of all, to turn it into a space where all of our community can access it as a venue,” Chhay said. “The other very important use is for our social services.”
Chhay said that they are envisioning a wide variety of uses for the center — from intergenerational services (such as elder care and child care running side by side), culturally informed health consultations, and potentially transitional housing for community members as well.
“This is a place where our elders are being respected… a place where they come for activities, whether it’s cooking, sewing, exercise,” Chhay said, adding that she hopes it will be “a place where our elders come in, instead of being stuck at home, instead of being isolated.”
In addition, Chhay said that CSEA hopes to eventually have early childhood programming in the space as well. Chhay also said that transitional housing space would be an asset for her community. “There’s not housing specifically for our community that focuses on a place where they can come in and stabilize until our staff [can] figure out where they need to be permanently,” she said.
“That’s my vision, our board vision, our community vision,” she said. Chhay emphasized that she is excited to see Old Temple Beth El serve the community again.
Chhay also acknowledged that with these lofty visions will come a lot of work.
The building needs extensive renovations and repairs. Additionally, they will need to comply with historic preservation and restoration regulations and guidelines.
Chhay said a completely new building may cost $2 million — “not this one,” she said. “We have the stained glass, the pews — everything has to be restored.”
Today, CSEA provides a wide variety of services and support to newly arrived Rhode Islanders and longtime locals, including job training, tax assistance, and support for small businesses and the community at large.
The CSEA helps people with their healthcare and tax paperwork and is specifically certified by the IRS to help undocumented residents who are working and paying taxes, Chhay said.
“We also support small businesses through loans to technical assistance,” Chhay said. “We’re helping [our community] survive in the climate of challenges of today’s world… So we’re not only helping individuals, families, communities, but businesses that are the economic engine in our state to stay viable to serve.”
Chhay explained that their assistance is also not limited to Southeast Asian Rhode Islanders or newly arrived immigrants — CSEA recently helped a resident who wasn’t Southeast Asian cover funeral costs.
“We help people,” Chhay said. “Everyone needs help, so the center at the moment is helping people and does not turn people away. That’s our mission.”
Chhay emphasized that though rehabilitating the Old Temple Beth El building will be a challenge, she hopes it will contribute to that mission.
To donate to the CSEA and support their renovation of Old Temple Beth El, call the center at 401-274-8811 or visit their website.
By Katy Pickens / Planning & Preservation Writer / kpickens@ppsri.org