A man, a plan

01:04 AM EDT on Sunday, May 1, 2005

BY CATHLEEN F. CROWLEY
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- Patrick T. Conley tramps through the mud toward a 754-foot wharf jutting into Providence Harbor. Splotches of bird droppings bleach the wood planks. Cold air blows off the water, though Conley wears only a suit and tie. He strides toward a metal shack halfway down the dock and sits inside, protected from the wind.

Journal photo / Gretchen Ertl

Patrick T. Conley wants this pier in Providence Harbor to be part of a $300-million project called Providence Piers, a place where residents and visitors could shop, dine and enjoy the city's maritime history.

"This is where we have coffee and we strategize," Conley said.

Conley has big plans.

He envisions cruise ships and ferries pulling up to his wharf. He dreams of a 400-boat marina to the north of the pier and, on the water's edge, a multistory hotel and condominium complex rising into the sky. He pictures a colony of artists selling their goods to tourists and sees the Sloop Providence and the Russian submarine tied to his dock. Visitors can shop, dine and enjoy the city's maritime history here at "Providence Piers."

Right now, though, it's mostly mud and pavement.

Conley has never built something this big. He's developing a $35-million housing project in Smithfield and has completed a handful of $3-million apartment buildings, but the price tag for Providence Piers is closer to $300 million. He said he is talking with investors and potential partners, but no agreements have been made yet. No city boards have reviewed -- never mind approved -- the project.

But if anyone can pull it off, Conley believes he can.

Conley wants the waterfront development to be his legacy to Providence and South Providence, his hometown and boyhood neighborhood.

He is better known for buying properties at tax sales and selling them at a profit, a practice that has not endeared him to some people.

Is he hoping people will forget about his tax sale legacy?

No, he doesn't mind if you remember that, too. That is Pat Conley, love him or hate him.

A FRAMED 1918 map of Providence hangs on the wall of Conley's temporary office on Allens Avenue. Conley points to the Burgess Cove neighborhood. His father was born there, he says. The cove was filled in and converted into a dump. Now it's the Thurbers Avenue exit off Route 95.

Conley grew up at 80 Byfield St. by the train tracks, and he played on top of the gas tanks that dot Allens Avenue.

"This is the Conley family coming back to South Providence," he said.

Conley, now 66 years old, has proposed building a hotel, condominiums, a marina and an 800-car parking garage on the land just south of the Fox Point Hurricane Barrier. Former Providence Mayor Vincent A. "Buddy" Cianci Jr. dubbed the area "Narragansett Landing" and targeted it for offices, apartments and marinas as part of his New Cities plan.

Conley's property sits between Sprague Electric and ProMet Marine Services, where Public Street intersects Allens Avenue. He paid $2.3 million for nine acres that once housed the Providence Gas Co. He has already demolished three massive oil tanks and dismantled the pipes that carried the oil.

He also bought the City Tire building next door for $106,000 at a tax sale. The four-story, barrel-roofed building served as a warehouse in the 1910s when the wharf on ProMet's property was known as State Pier No. 1. More than 18,000 immigrants disembarked at Pier No. 1 in 1915, making the city the fifth-largest immigrant landing, according to Conley's historical research.

Conley has poured $3 million into rehabilitating the building, which he named Conley's Wharf at State Pier No. 1. He has already leased the first three floors to an artists' group, which will sublet the space for art studios under a five-year agreement.

He believes the artists will bring vitality to the area.

The Partnership for Creative Industrial Space plans to rent studio space to about 40 artists at a bargain rate of $6 a square foot, or about $500 a month per studio.

An architect's rendering of Patrick Conley's Providence Piers project.

Lisa Carnavale, co-director of the partnership, is thrilled.

"If there are benefits that he can get from us, that is wonderful because we get benefits from him," Carnavale said. "He gets a group of people that will bring life to an area that doesn't quite have it yet. It's going to bring an attraction. It's going to kick-start some energy into the area."

Conley wanted to devote the top floor of the building to a conference center where all the organizations that he is involved with could meet, but his wife and business partner, Gail, wanted a restaurant.

"She said the entire top floor for a conference center is even too big for your ego," Conley said, with his wife at his side.

They compromised. The conference room will take the half that overlooks the water, and the restaurant will sit above Allens Avenue. Why doesn't the restaurant get the water view?

Gail Conley rolled her eyes.

"I decided," Pat Conley said.

"He will not change his mind," Gail Conley said.

"This is what I call an enlightened despotism," he added.

CONLEY IS a lawyer, real estate investor, historian and author. He served as chief of staff to former Mayor Cianci in 1979. He taught history and constitutional law at Providence College. He earned a doctorate in history and a place in Who's Who in America.

He also earned a reputation.

His critics, who include Dennis Langley of the Urban League, say he has contributed to blight in South Providence.

In 1979, Conley began buying up tax titles at municipal tax sales. He paid the delinquent taxes and property owners had a year to repay Conley or sell the property to avoid foreclosure.

Conley estimates that he has bought 8,000 tax titles in Providence. About 5,700 were redeemed by the property owners, and he took ownership of the remaining 2,300 when owners didn't pay their debt, Conley said. Most of the properties were vacant lots or dilapidated buildings, he said.

"Only one owner-occupant was ever dislocated by me from a tax title problem," he said. The owner refused to communicate with him, he said.

If the buildings had tenants, he said, he let them stay as long as they paid their rent.

Conley says his tax title purchases revitalized neighborhoods, because he cleared the tax liens, making them more attractive to buyers.

"The city itself was doing nothing other than holding them," he said. "They were much better off in my hands, sitting there ready to be sold."

But some didn't sell for years and became neighborhood eyesores, said Langley, executive director of the Urban League of Rhode Island.

"The lots he has purchased are not cleaned up," Langley said.

Langley acknowledged that the tax sale process is perfectly legal but added, "It is unconscionable for something of this nature to be legal."

Carla DeStefano, executive director of SWAP (Stop Wasting Abandoned Property) has purchased more than 25 properties from Conley and converted them into affordable housing.

Throughout their negotiations, DeStefano said Conley has been fair.

"If you can blame Pat Conley for part of the problem, then you have to give Pat Conley part of the credit" for the progress in South Providence, DeStefano said.

CONLEY'S ENTOURAGE of advisers follow him on a tour though the rehabilitated City Tire building. On his team, he has experts on restaurants, hotels, construction, real estate and history.

Conley charges ahead, speaking with the bullhorn voice of a football coach.

A thick wooden table is already bolted to the floor of his conference room. The table runs 30 feet 6 inches long.

"Six inches longer than Donald Trump's," Conley says.

The wide windows reveal spectacular views of the river, the city and the East Providence shoreline.

ProMet's boatyard fills the view from the southern windows. About a dozen ferries and large fishing boats are propped up on stilts. The boatyard is gritty and magnificent.

"It creates ambiance," Conley says.

Two newly installed fireplaces anchor the conference room and what will become the restaurant. One fireplace has 55 tons of stone and is the size of a zamboni.

Route 95 dominates the restaurant's panorama. It's beautiful, Conley says.

"At night, you have the white lights coming one way, the red lights going the other," he says. "It's a kaleidoscope of colors. And you can still see the boatyard."

Add pink to the panoply of color: Cheaters strip club is right across the street.

THOUGH HE has not appeared before the city zoning board or the City Plan Commission, Conley has discussed his project with city officials, including City Planner Thomas E. Deller.

Conley's proposal fits in with the city's vision for the area, Deller said.

"The plan seems headed in the right direction," Deller said. "We want people to be able to go out there and enjoy the water."

Deller suggested that Conley build higher.

Conley had originally proposed a 130-room hotel on the waterfront. After he spoke with Deller, Conley's architect redrew the development with a 320-unit hotel and a train line running along Allens Avenue. Deller wants the area to be dense enough to support a train trolley.

Meanwhile, Conley is busy recruiting attractions for the project.

He has convinced the nonprofit organization that operates the Sloop Providence, a replica of the Revolutionary War schooner dedicated to educational programs, to dock at his wharf.

He is also in discussions with the organization that operates as a museum the former Russian submarine now docked at nearby Collier Point.

Conley asked RIPTA officials to launch their Providence ferry to Newport from the wharf, which has a 27-foot draft at low tide.

Karen Mensel, a RIPTA spokeswoman, said RIPTA officials are interested in moving to Conley's property. The wharf appeals to the transportation agency because it shortens the trip to Newport, has more parking, and bypasses the hurricane barrier, through which navigation is difficult.

The pilots "do it well, but it's always dicey," she said.

If Conley's dock is suitable, Mensel said, the ferry could move there by the end of the year.

Conley's next step is to build the parking garage on the land next to the City Tire building, but first he must clean up pollution at the former industrial site.

Then, he plans to build the hotel and marina.

Conley has owned many properties, but this one is different, he said.

"This is, by far, the one that is the most sacred to me," he said.

He calls it his homecoming.

Cathleen F. Crowley can be reached at (401) 277-7376 or ccrowley [at] projo.com.