The Conrad Building is part of the Holiday Festival & Downtown Stroll.

Providence Preservation Society

Walk and gawk as usual. But don’t do it on Benefit Street.

This year the Providence Preservation Society is doing things differently for its holiday festival and residential tour. It’s changing its venue. Go downtown.

There on Friday evening you’ll find a special reception. And on Saturday, you’ll find a festival with a parade, a tree-lighting ceremony and a tour to see how people have decorated their homes for Christmas. And you’ll likely see a side of the city you haven’t seen: the residential downtown.

“PPS is a citywide organization,” says Lauren Goldenberg, the society’s development coordinator and coordinator of this event. “It’s important for us to showcase different neighborhoods. Benefit Street is still important. It’s our history and roots. But we’ve been expanding.”

Benefit Street, where PPS usually conducts its holiday tour, is quaint and quintessentially historic, with Colonial, Federal and Victorian houses that over time have all been restored and look all the cozier now with Christmas decorations. But this year’s event points out that there are other pretty places in Providence that have undergone prominent and recent preservation.

The downtown is such a place. Last year was sort of a transition for the event, where part of the festival and tour was on Benefit Street and part of it was downtown.

“Occupied buildings help preservation. The downtown community wants people to see what’s down there and to see the opportunity for both retail and living,” says Goldenberg.The Downtown Stroll involves 11 residences in 6 buildings: the Conrad Building on Westminster Street; the Peerless Building on Union; the Dreyfus Hotel on Washington; the Smith Building on Fulton; the Atlantic Bank Building on Weybosset, and the O’Gorman Building on Eddy Street. Most of them are penthouses.

“The views are to die for,” says Lucie Searle, a PPS trustee and co-chairwoman of the festival, along with Renee Chicoine. “You see things from the sixth and seventh floor that you don’t see on the street. The architects for some reason saved the best details for places you can’t see from the street.”

Searle compares the rooftop view of Providence with Paris, noting several examples of French Empire style architecture, most notably in City Hall, with its slate mansard roof, and other buildings with intricate, yet often overlooked, architectural details.

“There are buildings with decorative cornices that only the pigeons know about.”

A couple of years ago PPS conducted a tour of downtown properties. But at the time the buildings had not been fully renovated and occupied.

“At that point, we were showing potential. There has been a transformation from what was to what is. It’s incredible,” says Goldenberg.

Goldenberg points out that PPS has not been involved in the renovation of the downtown buildings, which has been done by numerous developers. But it has been promoting them. “PPS has a lot of involvement in the downtown. But we don’t restore buildings ourselves,” says Goldenberg.

The Holiday Festival & Downtown Stroll is Saturday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. There will be horse-drawn carriages, bell ringers and carolers. There’s a stroll from 4 to 6 p.m. And at 6 p.m., there’s Mayor David Cicilline’s tree-lighting ceremony outside City Hall.

To partake in Saturday’s tour of downtown residences, tickets are $25 when purchased by Dec. 4 ( www.ppsri.org and (401) 831-7440) and $30 the day of the event, purchased at the Peerless Building, 150 Union St. Included in the ticket prices are guided downtown walking tours at noon, 1 and 2 p.m.

On Friday, 6 to 9 p.m., there’s a special Patrons’ Reception inside City Hall. Tickets are $100, which includes Saturday’s tour.

brourke@projo.com