A 2004 plan called for a development similar to Quincy Market, featuring dozens of shops.

Rendering by Friedrich St. Florian

PROVIDENCE — The sale documents that transferred the food and produce terminal on Harris Avenue to Carpionato Properties appear to bar the developer from razing the historic building without approval from the state, but it remains to be seen if those documents will be enough to persuade a judge to halt the looming demolition of the building behind the Providence Place mall.

Carpionato, a Johnston developer, this week sought and received an emergency demolition permit to raze the historic 1929 building, arguing that it poses a risk to public safety. Carpionato wants to erect a combination of commercial and hotel buildings at the site, which it bought from the state early last year.

The move shocked state officials, who thought that the terms of the sale protected the building from demolition. The state sold the property at a below-market price on the condition that Carpionato reuse the building.

Thursday, state lawyers rushed to court to seek an order preventing Carpionato from destroying the terminal building.

The state charges that Carpionato is in violation of the sale agreement. The final sale documents appear to include language requiring the developer to obtain clearance from the state’s historic-preservation officer before altering the building.

“The company shall consult with the Rhode Island State Historic Preservation Officer to determine what level and kind of recordation of the building is required…. The Company shall ensure that all documentation is completed and accepted by the [preservation officer] prior to any modification of the building….” it reads.

But that may not be the most pressing point. In order to halt demolition of the historic building, the state must prove that Providence Building Official Kerry Anderson should not have issued a demolition permit, and to do that, state lawyers yesterday added the City of Providence as a defendant in their suit.

The state argues that its agencies have an equitable interest in the property, and that the city never informed the state agencies of the inspections or of the demolition permit process. Because it has a stake, the state can appeal, but the state argues that Providence’s failure to notify robbed it of that right.

Superior Court Judge Michael Silverstein will hear arguments on this temporary restraining order in his chambers Monday morning.

These developments are just the latest threats to the survival of the two-story, 810-foot-long, 58-foot-wide building, which has been on life support since the state purchased it from Amtrak in 1998.

TECHNICALLY NAMED the Providence Fruit and Produce Warehouse Company Building, but often referred to as the food and produce terminal, the building was constructed for $1 million in 1929 to distribute food throughout Southeastern New England. But by the 1990s it was little used, and the state Department of Transportation wanted part of the land at the site to build a highway offramp to serve Providence Place, then under construction.

The state bought the building from Amtrak for $14.1 million and evicted the remaining businesses. It held the property for six years while it debated what to do with it — either knock it down or sell it — and the property deteriorated, becoming a haven for the homeless and a draw for graffiti artists.

After lobbying by local preservationists, the state decided to put the building up for sale in the spring of 2004, with the condition that the original structure be incorporated into any new design.

The state’s request for proposals included a draft preservation easement that prevents the developer from knocking the building down for any reason — even in an emergency situation, only localized repairs are allowed without permission from state historic preservation officials.

But that preservation easement was never included in either the purchase agreement or the final property transfer last February. The acting head of the Providence Preservation Society, Vicki Veh, has questioned why it was absent.

Carpionato responded to the request with a $4.5-million bid, and on July 8, 2004, proposed a Quincy Market-style development featuring dozens of small shops. The state agreed in principle to the design, and consented to sell the building to Carpionato for $10 million less than the $14.1-million price it had paid to Amtrak seven years before. The reason, state officials said, was that half of the property had been sliced off to allow for the offramp construction. The other reason was that forcing the buyer to re-use the old building clearly reduced the value of the property.

The state and the developer spent the next two years working out the details of the transaction. In the interim, the building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. In late 2005, a fire damaged the building but did not destroy it.

FINALLY, the purchase agreement came before the State Properties Committee on June 20, 2006. At the time, the committee was chaired by Jerome F. Williams, now director of the DOT.

According to the minutes of the meeting, Williams appeared concerned that Carpionato might seek to demolish the building regardless of what agreements were in place.

Williams “believes it would be remiss of the State Properties Committee not to question the developer in regard to its intention with regard to the building, as the value of the property would increase significantly in the event the building is demolished,” the minutes read.

Carpionato’s lawyer, Thomas Moses, responded that the developer understood that “approval of Carpionato Properties Inc.’s development plan is contingent upon its incorporating the existing structure.”

Williams declined through a spokesman to speak to The Journal yesterday, but he has also stated in filings to the Superior Court that he felt that Carpionato has intentionally let the building deteriorate so that it would be easier to get a demolition permit.

Two months after the agreement was approved, Carpionato submitted a dramatically modified plan for the property, one that differed totally from its original Quincy Market-style plan.

The plan called for demolishing 700 feet of the 810-foot building, adding large retail “big box” stores on the ground floors, and building two 12-story hotel towers rising 120 to 150 feet.

“It appeared to us that Carpionato did not intend to abide by the terms of the agreement,” Deputy State Historic Preservation Officer Edward F. Sanderson said yesterday.

The proposal was so far outside of what the state had envisioned that the Historical Preservation and Heritage Commission rejected it outright in a letter sent Sept. 27, 2006.

Despite that, with the purchase agreement in place, the state continued toward completion of the transfer.

The final sale was delayed several months by the need to account for an easement over the property held by Amtrak, but the deal was finally concluded in February.

Then, last summer, Carpionato asked Anderson, the city building official, to inspect the building, informing him that the company felt it was a public safety hazard.

Anderson went through the site on Aug. 9. The inspection came just one week after Cranston developer The Procaccianti Group had used an emergency demolition permit to raze the former police and fire station in Providence’s La Salle Square.

Anderson went through the building quickly, and found evidence that vagrants were accessing it from numerous entrances. He ordered Carpionato, which had been removing asbestos from the structure, to secure the building or face sanctions. He said they did so.

“At the first visit I told them to secure the building, which I believe they did, having seen evidence of it when I drove by there,” he said.

Following his first visit, Carpionato informed Anderson that it would provide him with engineering reports to support their contention that the building was structurally unsound. Anderson delayed his follow-up visit until those reports arrived, in October. He then entered the building again, on Nov. 14.

He said that he saw that Carpionato’s efforts to fence and board up the building had been undone, and the building was breached at multiple points.

“The building had obviously been inhabited by vagrants again,” Anderson said. “Once they mend one piece of the fence, people go around and cut another piece somewhere else. Same with the boarding. There was even evidence of ladder use. People had climbed up on the rear canopy to enter the second-story windows,” he said.

Anderson could have asked Carpionato to fix specific problems rather than call for demolition, but he said that the problems were so widespread, and so severe — including the inability to properly seal the building — that demolition was the proper assessment. Mayor David N. Cicilline has backed the actions of his Building Department.

Carpionato senior vice president Kelly Coates said that the developer is only trying to follow the laws and maintain a safe environment. He also pledged not to destroy the building before the Monday hearing, despite holding the permit that allows demolition.

“We have to obey the orders of the city Building Department. And that’s where we are,” Coates said.

dbarbari@projo.com