After months of deliberations, the 195 District Commission has selected the Providence Art and Design Center proposal from Ionic Development Co. and Wade Keating Architects. The distinctive faux-townhouse building, with a mix of roughly 150 apartments and 25 condominiums, beat out proposals from Bluedog Capital Partners and Transom Real Estate.
The commission passed a resolution at its meeting on March 12 to select the Design Center partners as the preferred developers after presentations from all three contenders.
The selected proposal includes 30,000 square feet of retail, 117 parking spaces, and about 5% of the rentals will be designated as creative workforce housing (about seven or eight units of the 150). Workforce housing typically is affordable to those making between 80% and 120% of the Area Median Income (AMI).
Kaitlin McCarthy, founder and CEO of Ionic Development, discussed the firm’s plan to fill the various retail spaces with a mix of local and national tenants. Five Rhode Island businesses, most of them arts and design related, have already submitted letters of intent to be part of the development: DESIGNxRI, Air & Anchor, Myrth, Open Projects, and Angels Kitchen, a restaurant with a location already in Jamestown.
McCarthy and Andrew Keating, the architect on the project, both emphasized that they want the center to be a destination retail location, and have included an interior street within the design — splitting the complex into two sections — to facilitate public access to the site.
“Providence has a cultural plan, and that cultural plan is to create a destination for art and culture,” McCarthy said.
“That’s 18,000 plus jobs alone in Providence in the creative sector, which brings me to our mission statement, to create an art and design-focused destination that provides home ownership, delivers on the mission of the 195 Innovation and Design District, and maximizes the Creative Capital concentrated in the city of Providence,” she continued. “This is more than just an apartment building. We’re creating a destination, and we’re helping to build on the energy that’s already in this district and help push it forward.”
Commission Chairman Marc Crisafulli noted that the planned project for Parcels 8 and 8A with BankRI fell through. “To the two unsuccessful proposers tonight, we are giving you 60 days to think about whether you would like to engage in a discussion about moving a project or redeveloping a project on that parcel.”
By Katy Pickens / Planning & Preservation Writer / kpickens@ppsri.org