Proposal says a major remake of LaSalle, Emmett squares would draw walkers Downcity

10:53 AM EDT on Sunday, April 17, 2005

BY GREGORY SMITH
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- A couple hesitates at the precipice, leaning forward. Looking up and down the street, they calculate whether it is safe to cross the busy boulevard.

They step off the curb and begin walking. Halfway across, they break into a trot as another wave of cars begins surging toward them. In a few seconds, they arrive at the other side of the street.

Journal photo / Gretchen Ertl

A pedestrian navigates Francis Street last week in the "free-for-all" known as Emmett Square in downtown Providence. The square has been called deadly.

That moment occurs hundreds of times a day, as pedestrians, bicyclists and others make their way around downtown. But those are crucial moments in the life of Downcity, the older part of downtown, according to the newly released report of an eight-day urban-planning workshop led by renowned urbanist Andres Duany of Florida.

Workshop participants recommended that the city and state drastically remake LaSalle and Emmett squares as true formal squares that would help to fulfill Providence's promise as a pedestrian-friendly city.

As it is, both "squares" are actually intersections that critics lambaste as pedestrian free-for-alls with crisscrossing traffic. LaSalle Square is the convergence of five streets in front of the Dunkin' Donuts Center, and Emmett Square is the intersection near the Providence Journal Building and The Westin Providence where Francis, Sabin, Fountain and Dorrance streets and Exchange Terrace converge.

Mayor David N. Cicilline said recently that the city has applied for state aid to reconstruct the intersections, which are used by many of the millions of people who commute to work in Providence or who visit every year.

"Both of them are critical, and they're both deadly right now," remarked Richard Godfrey, executive director of Rhode Island Housing and Mortgage Finance Corporation, which has its headquarters in Downcity.

Rhode Island Housing was one of eight workshop cosponsors, along with the city, the Providence Foundation and Cornish Associates, a development company. The aim of the 2004 workshop was to sketch ideas for the continuing revitalization of Downcity, an area about seven to eight blocks around, which is generally bounded by Dorrance, Sabin, Empire and Weybosset streets.

Downcity is beginning to blossom as an entertainment district where people also live, work and shop.

Arnold B. "Buff" Chace, owner of Cornish Associates and Downcity's leading champion, said, "We have the bones to be as high-quality a place as anywhere in the Northeast."

Formal squares not only would dress up two major intersections with a European flair, advocates say, but they would improve traffic management, force drivers to slow down, and make it easier for pedestrians and bicyclists to navigate.

That would make it more likely that pedestrians would venture into Downcity -- that's what business people and city officials want -- from the visitor magnets at Providence Place mall, Waterplace Park, the Rhode Island Convention Center, the Dunkin' Donuts Center and hotels.

The report, "Connecting and Completing Downcity Providence," also recommends the demolition of Cathedral Square and Bishop McVinney Memorial Auditorium, which bisect Westminster Street, to reestablish Westminster as a thoroughfare between Downcity and neighborhoods on the other side of Route 95.

Restoring the street, the report says, would revitalize both sides of the highway by removing physical and psychological barriers.

The report urges the development of a supermarket at one of several possible locations, either in Downcity or on the south side of Route 95, to serve burgeoning communities in both places.

A year after the workshop was held, rekindling excitement about Downcity and possible renewed links to Federal Hill and South Providence, the prospects are vague for its recommendations.

Cicilline says that his administration is taking the lead in implementing the recommendations, that all of the proposals are feasible, and that work is being done on all of them. But he declined to be specific.

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Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island will have a lot to say about whether LaSalle Square is transformed, because it owns an underused plaza in front of its office building at 1 LaSalle Square that would have to be demolished to create the square.

Cicilline and Thomas E. Deller, city director of planning and development, have discussed the future of the square with Blue Cross.

At this time last year, it was an open question whether Blue Cross would keep its offices in Providence or move to Smithfield. The mayor and others lobbied the health insurer to stay, and Blue Cross spokesman Scott Fraser disclosed two weeks ago that the company has decided to keep its 1,000-plus employees in downtown.

"We are willing to explore any and all options in the city," he said, with the goal of consolidating operations in fewer buildings to save money. Blue Cross leases or owns all or parts of five buildings in Providence.

Fraser would not say whether Blue Cross would surrender the plaza. It depends on what the city specifically proposes, he said. The mayor said he anticipates an important announcement in the coming months regarding LaSalle Square, but he would not tip his hand.

The report is chock-full of watercolor imaginings of the flourishes that Providence could make, including the development of handsome commercial and residential buildings in key locations and the addition of an ornamental superstructure to the top of the Broadway bridge across Route 95. "Providence" could be spelled out in the metalwork of the superstructure as an attraction to passersby.

Duany said that since the mall now blocks sight of the State House from Route 95, spoiling the sense of arrival that Providence used to have, the city needs some new signature buildings and tricks, such as spelling its name in the bridgework, to impress visitors.

Workshop participants, interviewed recently, point to the plans of developers James Procaccianti and Joseph R. Paolino Jr. as proof that the report's depictions of extensive new private development in and around Downcity are not pie in the sky.

And Procaccianti says that his vision for development is compatible with the workshop's recommendations.

Journal photo / Gretchen Ertl

At the spot where Francis, Sabin, Fountain and Dorrance Streets and Exchange Terrace come together, drivers and pedestrians interact in away that frustrates both groups. Aproposal could change all that.

Procaccianti plans to reconstruct the Holiday Inn at LaSalle Square into a 314-room Hilton hotel with an adjacent tower that would contain 150 residential condominiums. He seeks to have them linked to the Dunkin' Donuts Center and the Rhode Island Convention Center so guests can easily move among the facilities.

In partnership with Paolino, he would like to build a 278-unit condominium tower at the site of the former City Gulf station across Atwells Avenue from the Holiday Inn.

Procaccianti is also buying The Westin Providence in an agreement with the Convention Center Authority in which he would build an adjacent tower with 150 hotel rooms, offices and up to 80 condominiums.

The city plans to narrow Fountain Street between LaSalle and Emmett squares and to increase on-street parking by switching from parallel parking to angled parking. By slightly changing the alignment of the street, land would be freed to square off the oddly shaped site of the Fogarty Building, adjacent to The Journal Building, so a hotel could be built there, according to Deller, the city planning director.

As for the proposed reconnection of Westminster Street, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence, which owns the auditorium, has told the city that it is having trouble with the upkeep of its large real estate portfolio and would be willing to give up the auditorium.

The city otherwise owns most of the needed land, including the street right-of-way where a promenade now runs uphill from Empire Street and acreage on both sides of the auditorium.

By selling the development rights to city-owned land in the vicinity, the workshop report states, the city could help finance the Westminster project.

The city has applied to the state for $500,000 to design and build the squares and for $200,000 to design the reopening of Westminster Street between Empire and Greene streets. Reopening the street through Cathedral Square and the auditorium site to Franklin Street would come in a second phase.

Because expensive work on drainage or public utilities won't be necessary, Deller said, the cost of building the squares would be modest.

"Think of them as two 20,000-square-foot parks," he said.

Copies of the workshop report are for sale at Symposium Books, 240 Westminster St. The charge is $3 to defray the publication cost.