Beam work is under way at the Smith-Mathewson Building, one of several Providence buildings undergoing renovation.

The Providence Journal / Sandor Bodo

PROVIDENCE The construction cranes that towered over downtown for years are gone. There are empty lots where buildings once stood. Plans for boutique hotels and office towers have evaporated.

But there are still signs of life. Facades are being redone. Buildings are being renovated. New apartments, storefronts and office space are opening.

The downtown projects of today — those in the 150 acres of Capital Center, Downcity and the Jewelry District — may not be as dramatic as the major developments of recent years.

But they still represent millions of dollars in new investment, job creation and economic activity –– an injection of capital in a city and state that desperately needs it.

“You’re not seeing the major $40-million project anymore. You’re seeing $4- to $5-million projects, but they’re happening in three to four locations, so it’s bringing in work to a number of different firms,” says Steven Nappa, whose contracting company is renovating part of the Benjamin Dyer Block, the oldest downtown structure.

NAPPA’S IS ONE of two significant projects under way along Weybosset Street, across from Johnson & Wales University.

The first is the rehabilitation of the historic Smith-Mathewson building, at 159 Weybosset. The building dates to the 1840s and is now home to an American Apparel clothing store.

The Smith-Mathewson building was damaged in the 2006 fire that destroyed the building next door (the former Downcity Diner) and had been in desperate need of repairs.

Over the summer, construction crews tore down the entire side wall of the building, which was compromised by the fire, and exposed the ongoing floor-by-floor renovation. Owner Stanley Weiss is adding a fourth floor to the building and converting everything but the ground floor into office space. Weiss has also purchased the empty lot next door, where the Downcity Diner building stood, and is working on a new 3,000-square-foot building that he hopes will house a sushi restaurant.

Nappa is working one block over, at 199 Weybosset St., where property owner Dionisios P. Sampalis started work this month on a project he planned more than five years ago.

Sampalis owns Saki’s Pizza House, a fast-food joint popular with the college and late-night crowds. The restaurant is on the first floor of the Benjamin Dyer Block, which dates to 1820.

Sampalis owns half of the Dyer Block, and is rehabilitating the upper floors –– formerly office space and a dance studio–– into 15 apartments, each about 650 square feet. He also plans to upgrade the pizzeria to a more upscale Mediterranean restaurant.

“The time is ripe,” says Americo Mallozzi, the project architect. “Pricing [for construction materials and labor] is better because contractors want work. And the building, it wouldn’t have made it another winter.”

On Washington Street, the arts nonprofit group, AS220, is gutting the Mercantile Block building, which dates to 1901, for new artist lofts, commercial storefronts and its public fabrication lab, the Fab Lab.

Two blocks over, on narrow Union Street, the former home of the Providence Telephone Company is getting new life as an apartment complex, with space for a new restaurant or grocer on the street level.

And at the foot of College Hill, one of the city’s oldest industrial structures, the Congdon & Carpenter complex, has been undergoing a major facelift since June.

Originally home to an iron warehouse, a silversmith and a jewelry business, the three-building complex is bounded by Canal, Elizabeth, Steeple and North Main streets and now houses the 3 Steeple Street and New Rivers restaurants.

Capital Properties is investing $2.2 million into the renovation, which will expand New Rivers, improve 3 Steeple Street’s exterior and create office space on the top two floors.

ROBERT AZAR, the city’s director of current planning, points out that there are also major downtown building projects just completed.

For example, Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island’s new 13-story, $90-million headquarters at 500 Exchange St., near Waterplace Park, opened this month after two years of construction.

The first phase of Capital Cove, a planned $35-million condominium-and-apartment complex on Canal Street near the downtown train station opened in September, although owner Robert S. Roth ended up leasing its 96 units to Johnson & Wales for use as a dorm after he struggled to sell residential units in a weak housing market.

And Moran Shipping Agencies Inc., an international port services provider, will eventually move into a newly renovated corporate headquarters in the historic Rhode Island Medical Society Building, at 106 Francis St., across from the Providence Place mall and the State House. That project, which was slated to be done earlier this year, is still under way.

“Despite the economic downtown, there is a quite of bit of development that was already under way that is still happening now,” says Azar. “Yes, some major projects have stalled, but we’re still seeing projects.”

City officials and others argue that these projects offer a buffer until the economy improves: just on the horizon are reasons to be hopeful, from the new city land becoming available from the relocation of Route 195 to the expansion plans of Brown and Johnson & Wales universities.

STILL IT’S HARD to ignore the steep drop-off in downtown building. Many projects announced (often to great fanfare) before the state’s real estate bubble burst three years ago have faded quietly.

The $150-million Dynamo House project, which was to turn the vacant South Street Power Station in the Jewelry District into a five-star hotel and Rhode Island history museum, has been put on indefinite hold by Struever Bros., Eccles & Rouse, its financially struggling developer. The building is an empty shell of brick and steel.

A brick façade, held up by rusting steel supports, stands on Weybosset Street, in the heart of the city’s Financial District. The historic façade was to be incorporated into a 38-story, $160-million condo-and-hotel project, but developer Jeremiah O’Connor III has not moved forward with the project.

An empty dirt lot sits between Washington and Fountain streets where two buildings had been razed to make way for a planned 11-story, 161-room hotel. That project, known as Hotel Sierra, has also fallen through, according to the city.

“No one’s really building anything new,” says City Planner Christopher Ise. “Everyone’s waiting to see what happens next.”

Former Mayor Joseph R. Paolino, a major downtown property owner, says that Downcity’s problems are more complex than a building bust. “These renovations are nice, but people need to recognize the devastation that is going on,” Paolino said.

Providence still lacks companies to fill its vacant office space, which is growing.

According to a study released earlier this year by Hayes & Sherry Real Estate Services, Class A commercial office vacancy rates in the city increased from 9.23 percent in 2007 to 12.72 percent in 2008. Vacancies for Class B office space, which are mid-market offices, increased from 7.48 percent to 17.31 percent.Paolino says there is nearly a million square feet of empty or soon-to-be-empty office space downtown. That includes Blue Cross & Blue Shield moving more than 1,000 employees to its new headquarters, which emptied three downtown office sites, including one of Paolino’s.

And an “economic bomb” is coming to the city if Bank of America chooses to move elsewhere, Paolino says.

A Bank of America branch and an administrative center currently take up the bulk of the iconic, 26-story art deco skyscraper at 111 Westminster St., the tallest office building in the state, often referred to locally as the Superman building.

The company’s lease is up in 2013. Company spokesman T.J. Crawford says it’s too early to say whether the Charlotte-based company will continue to staff the 350,000 square feet of office space.

“Every property owner is scared,” said Paolino. “We’re in uncharted waters, right now.”

pmarcelo@projo.com