When the relocation of Route 195, foreground, is completed, city and state officials expect developers to covet portions of the 35 acres made available by the move.

The Providence Journal / Andrew Dickerman

PROVIDENCE — The state and the city have struck a deal to give Providence a voice in the sale of the land uncovered when Route 195 is peeled away four years from now — a once-in-a-lifetime property sale that some envision will lead to towering new office buildings that reshape the city’s skyline.

Until this point, the state Department of Transportation has controlled who could buy the property to be made available by the relocation of Route 195, and the city had been angling for a way in. Under an agreement to be officially signed this morning, the city, the DOT, and the state Economic Development Corporation will be partners in determining the future of the land.

The relocation of the highway will open up roughly 35 acres in Providence’s Jewelry District, estimated to be fully available for development by 2012.

Eight acres will be set aside for a park that will span both sides of the Providence River, and another approximately eight acres will be used to re-establish street patterns and for landscaping. That leaves just over 19 acres of prime real estate available for development, and Providence Mayor David N. Cicilline envisions it as a new commercial center for Providence, full of office buildings and high-wage jobs.

“This is one of the most important moments, I think, in our city’s history, to have this kind of land open for development,” Cicilline said. “I will be very focused on using as much of that land as possible to create jobs.”

That will likely mean tall buildings that dramatically change the Providence skyline when all is said and done, said EDC Director Saul Kaplan.

“I think this is the game changer. This is the kind of opportunity we’re going to look back on 10 years from now, and if we do it right, we’re going to see a completely new skyscape in our capital city,” Kaplan said.

Kaplan said that the state and city could market the zone as a block aimed at attracting the kind of industries Rhode Island and Providence want: health and life sciences, financial services, information technology and digital media.

“This is a project to increase the capacity for those high-wage jobs,” Kaplan said.

This could involve the city’s institutions, such as its nearby hospitals, or Brown University, which has been making extensive inroads into the Jewelry District in recent years.

However, Cicilline said that he has not yet had specific conversations about the Route 195 land with heads of the city’s universities or hospitals.

In the next 10 days, the partnership will solicit bids for a consultant to conduct a study to determine the best way to market and sell the land — if, for example, the 19 acres should be broken into small lots for sale, or sold as larger packages.

The consultant’s hiring will be financed through a low-interest loan from the Providence Preservation Society’s revolving fund, and repaid from the sale of the property.

A five-member committee will be formed to determine the best use for the land, composed of the DOT director, the EDC director, the state Department of Administration director, a representative from the Federal Highway Administration, and the Providence planning director.

The city and the EDC will be heavily involved in developing a vision for the property and marketing it, but the DOT retains the final authority on selling the land.

“By choosing to work with the City of Providence to redevelop the surplus state land being freed up by the relocation of I-195, Rhode Island will take advantage of an unprecedented opportunity to create new jobs, grow the economy and change the look of our capital city,” Governor Carcieri said in a statement.

Kaplan declined to put a figure on what the state hopes to recoup from the sale of the property. The proceeds from the sale of the land would go into state coffers, much of it to pay off the initial borrowing for the highway project.

The depressed real estate market has to be taken into account, Kaplan acknowledged, but the timetable for development and the inherent value of the property should mean that the state reaps great rewards from its sale.

“You always want to take into account the current market conditions, but this is a longer-term opportunity. We’re very confident that we’re sitting on a very prime piece of real estate. You’re not going to find anywhere up and down the Northeastern seaboard the kind of potential that this opens up,” Kaplan said.

The terms of the agreement will require that Providence continue to update its comprehensive plan, and change zoning codes in the targeted areas to allow for prompt development of the parcels.

The $610-million Iway project, as the Route 195 relocation has been branded, was first announced in 1993, and work began in earnest in 2002.

The project involves moving Route 195 south of the hurricane barrier, and thus removing the elevated highways that cut Providence’s downtown off from the Jewelry District. The final travel lanes are expected to open next year, but the demolition and removal of the existing highway, bridges and embankments aren’t scheduled for completion until 2012.

Providence has pushed for a role in the land sale for years, with Cicilline in 2005 unsuccessfully putting forward state legislation advocating the creation of a separate agency, the Providence Development Corporation, to oversee the potential sale. At the time, Cicilline said that the transportation agency was not the best avenue for selling the property.

“If that legislation doesn’t pass, then the DOT will have the responsibility to see that the land is developed, but the DOT doesn’t have the redevelopment skills,” Cicilline said in 2005. “They are a transportation agency. They don’t want to, nor should they, be responsible for the redevelopment,” he said.

That effort failed, but the city continued to push to establish its role, leading to this agreement, which new DOT Director Michael Lewis said is an example of the state and city collaborating and getting it right.

“This partnership serves as a model for how state and municipal officials can work efficiently and collaboratively on large scale projects to best serve the people of Rhode Island,” Lewis said. “The relocation of I-195 has been an incredible undertaking and we are pleased to see so much progress on the project.”

dbarbari@projo.com