PROVIDENCE — The Big East Conference headquarters have been downtown since its founding 30 years ago by a Providence College athletics director, but city officials are concerned whether the nation’s largest college Division I sports conference will stay.

The Big East’s main office, which includes that of Commissioner John M. Marinatto, is at 222 Richmond St., in an office building in the Jewelry District that Brown University is turning into its new medical school.

The Big East and other tenants have been asked by the university to vacate the building by March 31, 2010, so that renovation work can begin in the spring, according to John Paquette, the conference’s associate commissioner of communications.

The conference, which encompasses 16 colleges and universities along the East Coast and in the Midwest, is now weighing its next move, and it hasn’t committed unconditionally to Providence.

“We have not found a new spot. We’re looking at a few different locations,” Paquette said Wednesday. “We’d like to stay. We’re happy here in Providence. It’s the only place we’ve been.”

City Council President Peter S. Mancini, a Democrat whose ward includes Providence College, says the loss of the Big East would be a big blow to the city. “The Big East is such a big part of Providence. When you think of Providence, you think of the Big East. At least I do,” he said.

Mancini is submitting a resolution at Thursday’s council meeting urging the Big East to maintain its Providence roots and requesting that the city Department of Planning and Development help the conference relocate downtown. “With all of these vacant office buildings downtown, I’m sure they can find a space,” says Mancini.

Paquette, of the Big East, says the conference is still looking in Rhode Island, but not necessarily just in Providence. Previous news reports have said that the conference has scoped out sites in New York, Tampa, Fla., and Hartford.

The conference, which employs more than 30 in Providence, has also voiced concerns to Brown that vacating 222 Richmond in the spring would hit the organization right in the thick of March Madness, during the annual collegiate basketball championship season.

“It’s a crazy time for us,” said Paquette. The conference has been housed in 14,000 square feet on the first floor since 2000.

John Luipold, Brown’s director of real estate, says that other than the Big East, eight of the building’s other tenants have agreed to move out by the end of March. The conference’s lease expires on June 30, 2010.

Earlier this year, the university announced that it would renovate the historic, 135,000-square-foot building rather than build a new home for its Warren Alpert Medical School. Students currently take classes on the university’s main campus on the East Side.

The new school is set to open in August 2011.

pmarcelo@projo.com