| projo.com | The Providence Journal

11.19.2000
Rave reviews boost Providence

The Money's on the Renaissance City, with tourists and newcomers flocking to its restaurants, hotels and stores. The challenge now: keeping the growth alive.

By D. MORGAN McVICAR
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE — A continent apart in two of America's most celebrated cities, two young couples are of like mind on this: Providence, R.I., is a place to be. A place to buy a home. A place to raise a family. A place to pursue personal and professional happiness.

"It's affordable, it's comfortable, it's small enough but it's big enough," says Sarah Bordac over the phone from Los Angeles. "It's just right. I think we've made the decision to go to Providence. It's just a question of when."

"We want a place a little more rooted and affordable, but that still offers cultural options," says Dan Wolf, from his apartment across the Potomac from Washington, D.C. "Providence is close to some other big cities, but still has its own flavor and culture."

Some 25 years after Bette Midler came here to sing and left proclaiming the city "the pits," Providence has emerged as a destination. Riding the crest of waves of publicity in journals national and local, Providence is surging into the big time — as a place to live and work, as a place to visit, a place to dine and a place to hold conventions.

The stage has been set for some years now, through a combination of the new and, by American standards, the ancient. The new: rechanneled rivers lined with graceful river walks, WaterFire, new hotels, a convention center, an ice rink, a mall, restaurants. The old: the nationally respected Trinity Repertory Company and Providence Performing Arts Center, hundreds of antique houses, any one of which would be a museum in most American cities and towns, and the venerable Brown University and Rhode Island School of Design.

But moving rivers is perhaps less daunting than erasing a long-standing and well-deserved reputation as a backwater, one best seen from Route 95 en route to Boston or the Cape.

"I was the ugliest girl in Providence, Rhode Island," Lola said in the musical Damn Yankees in 1955. Ugly in Providence: it couldn't get any worse than that.

Twenty years later, newly elected Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr. watched from the steps of City Hall, during his inauguration, as a piano was wheeled out of the nearby Biltmore Hotel. A few weeks later, the hotel closed. Around the same time, monkeys escaped from the dilapidated Roger Williams Park Zoo and roamed the city. And mob kingpin Raymond L.S. Patriarca got out of jail and was back in business.

Providence was a laughingstock, to locals and outsiders alike.

And without a dramatic turnabout of its image, Providence's renaissance could have remained as unappreciated as it has been remarkable.

INEVITABLY, however, the media discovered the new Providence. Some half-dozen articles in The New York Times alone in recent years have introduced prominent readers to the rejuvenated city. The leftist-leaning Utne Reader in 1997 called Providence one of the nation's most enlightened cities. Swing magazine said it is the best place to live for artists. USA Today this year listed Providence among the country's five renaissance cities. Girlfriends magazine deemed it one of the 10 best places for lesbians to live. Travel and Leisure said the city's zoo is one of the nation's 10 best.

The city's burgeoning restaurant industry has been paid tribute in the last few years by, among others, Food & Wine, Bon Appetit, The National Review: Official Magazine of the American Culinary Federation, The New York Times, the Boston Herald, and the National Culinary Review.

The litany of other publications that have rhapsodized about the new Providence includes such diverse periodicals as The Salvation Army War Cry; National Geographic Traveler; the Shopping Center Executive; Governing Magazine; Film & Video; Working Woman; InSync: The Magazine for Connoisseurs of Fine Timepieces; Art & Antiques; The Cyprus Weekly; and the Art World News.

"Once discussed only in hushed tones as New England's organized crime capital, Providence has blossomed into one of America's most spectacular urban comeback stories, a fading, industrial town transformed into a quirky arts mecca that claims more artists per capita than any place in the country," gushed Governing Magazine.

Providence is "a metropolis that's found a sane and sensible way to embrace its past and build for the future without compromising either," said Latitudes, an American Airlines magazine. "With a balanced blend of business and finances, art colony, college town and historic center, Providence is a showplace for urban renovation. It's what a city — any city — should look and feel like."

In August, the Philadelphia Daily News issued a special report: "The Future of the American City." Providence ranked number one for cities with the best ideas in the arts.

Capping this phenomenal run of adulatory media buzz, Money magazine last week named Providence the best place to live in the East. Touch , Bette, Lola et al.

WHITHER NOW is the question for Providence. Can the city build on its foundation of tourism, which is now one of the fastest growing industries both nationally and regionally? Can the city create the jobs for those like the Wolfs and Bordacs who will make their homes and raise their families here?

Can it turn the corner in the ambitious project to convert a largely abandoned inner core into a true arts and entertainment district, rather than one largely in name only?

And can all of this happen without sacrificing the charm, pace of life and cost of living that set Providence apart from cities such as Boston and New York?

City and state officials continue to seek answers to some of these questions. For now, statistics and anecdotes tell the story of what Providence has become, for tourists, conventioneers and transplants.

The Rhode Island Convention Center raked in $38 million for the 12 months ended June 30, or 16 percent more than the previous fiscal year.

The center booked 55 conventions in that fiscal year, compared with 39 the year before. An independent study found that in the year ended June 30, 1999, the convention center, Westin hotel and parking garages generated $56 million in direct economic benefits to the state.

The skeptics were ubiquitous when the state decided to build the center in the early 1990s. Why would anyone want to hold a convention here?

For a number of reasons, says Roberta Mosedale, executive director of the National Society for Histotechnology. Last year, 1,600 hospital laboratory workers attended the society's annual convention here.

"We're looking for hotel rates number one," Mosedale says. "Also the amount of space in the convention center with the number of meeting rooms, and the convenience of hotels to the convention center. And the ease of getting into the city as far as flight schedules."

Many of her members extend their stay into a vacation, Mosedale says. So sightseeing, shopping and other activities factor in as well.

"We found the city to be very enchanting," she says. "The quaintness, the small-town feel. I recall several very good restaurants. Many of our members still talk about the lobster we had in one restaurant."

Sue Hueg organizes trade shows for groups across the country. Last year, she arranged for a graphic artists trade show in Providence, to be held in June 2002.

"We look at hotel packages, pricing at the convention center," Hueg says. "Do we have to bus people in or can they walk? What kind of nightlife is available?

"A lot of it is how easy is it for exhibitors to work in a particular city. Is it favorable or very strongly-union-oriented? In Providence, for instance, the way I understand it, an exhibitor can unload his or her own truck and wheel stuff in. In a strong union city, one exhibitor per company could carry as much as they could walk in with one time, and the rest has to be handled by the union."

ONLY A FEW YEARS AGO, spotting someone with a map and a backpack anywhere in Providence would have been like a sighting of the Abominable Snowman.

Barbara Barnes manages the walking tour program "Summer Walks" for the Rhode Island Historic Society. This year, 794 visitors strolled behind a guide along the rivers and Benefit Street, an increase from 252 the previous summer.

Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts and California were the states most represented on the walks. In all, people from 25 states and six foreign countries participated.

"People can't believe what's here," Barnes says. "The scale is so inviting and the quality of the buildings so great," she says of Benefit Street, the East Side's signature avenue of historic homes. "When people see something like (any one of Benefit's treasures) in other parts of the country, it's a museum and here it's a living neighborhood."

Barnes also teaches a segment of a program called Positively Providence, which is sponsored by the Convention Center Bureau. The program was started three years ago by Mayor Cianci, as part of a push to make the city more tourist-friendly.

It targets anyone who might have contact with out-of-towners: hotel front-desk personnel, cab drivers, car rental agency workers, salespeople.

"When you travel, what do you want?" Barnes says of what she teaches. "Good maps, good hotels, restaurants. What are the best restaurants, where can you park, how can you feel safe around the city? What are the world-class places in the city?"

A few figures suggest the potential economic impact of tourism in Providence. The state does not break down statistics by city or region. But in 1982, travel and tourism generated $507 million in Rhode Island. Last year, the number — in 1982 dollars — had more than tripled, to $1.5 billion.

George Donnelly, recently named director of the Providence Tourism Council, says one barometer of increased tourism in the city is the restaurant business. And over the past three years, gross tax receipts for restaurants have increased by 8 or 9 percent annually. That compares to a national average increase of 5 percent annually.

"There are three key ingredients to any good tourism destination," Donnelly says. "Good restaurants, good shopping and good hotels. What Providence has done the very best is the three basics. We have the zoo, skating, RISD museum. They're well-attended, but not large-scale attractions for tourists.

"We don't have a theme park, a casino or a large-scale historical museum. What we really have is the three strong basics."

WHERE PROVIDENCE can capitalize in the future, Donnelly says, is in the growing area of cultural heritage tourism. While many other cities in the Northeast have razed their historic homes and buildings, Providence restored its.

"We're focusing on the fact, when you come to Providence, it feels like a European, old-world city," Donnelly says.

Donnelly would love to focus the council's energy on expanding tourism to Providence, repositioning it from a place for day-trippers to a destination where people will stay for several days. Likewise, convention authority leaders are eager to expand the city's convention business.

The rub, however, is considerable: there is, literally, no room at the inn. Even with the Courtyard Marriott opening this summer, Providence hotels are at near-full capacity. There is no room for more tourists, and no hope for larger and more lucrative conventions.

It is a nice problem to have and one that public and private figures in the city are working behind the scenes to resolve.

Meanwhile, the transplants continue to come, some, like Californian Bordac and Virginian Wolf, because they've done their research. And others, like Jeff Stibel, for reasons more providential.

Stibel came to Providence from Boston four years ago to begin work at Brown University toward a doctorate. He expected a New England Jersey City, and anticipated as short a stay as possible.

Two years ago, Stibel, 27, launched an Internet company, Simpli.com. When his company subsequently merged with NetZero, Stibel made the merger contingent on his being able to stay in Providence.

"My fianc and I went through the same hoops," Stibel says. "We were both living in downtown Boston and in love with the city. I was anticipating a dump when we moved here. I didn't think there'd be a lot to do and a lot of culture and industry.

"We were beyond pleasantly surprised. Within six to eight months, we had become locals. For me, it means quite a commute, every other week to California for a couple of days.

"But I love Providence. I love Rhode Island. It's where we'd like to raise a family."

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