A crane rises atop the Blue Cross building at Capital Center, while in the foreground the Capitol Cove project moves closer toward completion. Below, scaffolding envelops the First Baptist Church, off South Main Street.

The Providence Journal / Bill Murphy

People returning to Providence after Labor Day and summer vacation may notice some changes to the city’s skyline.

There’s a crane working atop what will become the 13-story headquarters for the insurer Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island. The steel skeleton of the buildings is under construction in Capital Center, next to the new Waterplace apartments. The three-building cluster represents what could be downtown’s most concentrated group of high-rise buildings. When the structure is complete in 2010, at an estimated cost of $114 million, it will stand 237 feet above Waterplace Park, at the corner of Finance Way and Exchange Place.

Nearby, roofs and walls have been added to the first phase of the Capitol Cove project under construction near the Amtrak station. This segment includes 96 residential condominium units, which could be available by year-end. The developer, Robert S. Roth, of Massachusetts, has said he will wait and see how the real-estate market fares next spring before deciding whether the 153 units planned for phase two will be condos or apartments.

Further east and on the other side of the Moshassuck River, off North Main Street, scaffolding has been erected around the steeple of the First Baptist Church in America as part of an exterior restoration.

— NEIL DOWNING