Views of a section of Harris Avenue, in front of the former produce market, that Carpionato Properties wants to obtain from the city.

The Providence Journal / Andrew Dickerman

PROVIDENCE — With demolition under way at the Harris Avenue food and produce terminal, Carpionato Properties is moving ahead with the early steps of its plan to erect a major office, retail, and hotel development at the site.

The developer is in the midst of sealing a deal with the city to slice the width of Harris Avenue by a third and use the additional space for frontage for its project. Carpionato would also change the intersection of Harris Avenue with Providence Place — formerly Kinsley Avenue — and replace the Y-shaped intersection with a T-shaped intersection.

Carpionato would cut the width of the 800-foot section of Harris Avenue that runs along the produce terminal from 60 feet to 40 feet. The developer would pay the city $350,000 for the right to narrow the street. The street abandonment must be approved by the City Council at a meeting next month.

“This will enable us to build a proper development here.” said Kelly Coates, senior vice president of Carpionato. The plan to abandon portions of Harris Avenue was submitted to the city in 2005, but sat until Carpionato began demolishing the terminal this month. Carpionato bought the terminal, known as the Providence Fruit & Produce Warehouse Company Building, from the state Department of Transportation in February 2007. The Johnston developer wants to build a retail and hotel complex at the site.

Last summer, Carpionato asked city Building Official Kerry Anderson to inspect the building, asserting that it might be unsafe. Anderson made two visits and on Dec. 28 issued an order requiring Carpionato to obtain a demolition permit, which it secured on Jan. 9. The state sue sued to stop the demolition, but lost in Superior Court. Local preservationists were aghast at the demolition and Mayor David N. Cicilline created a commission to try to explore how historic buildings in poor shape, such as the produce terminal, can avoid demolition in the future.

The director of the DOT, Jerome F. Williams, accused Carpionato of attempting “demolition by neglect” — essentially allowing the building to deteriorate to the point where it would have be torn down.

Coates said in an e-mail to The Journal that that claim is false, particularly because the state owned the property for far longer, when, he said, the real deterioration happened.

“Carpionato never forced ‘demolition by neglect,’ despite the allegations of Rhode Island Department of Transportation Director Jerome F. Williams. The state closed on the property in 1998 and never undertook any maintenance. RIDOT sold the property 9 years later. During the interim the roof was never repaired and water drenched the entire structure for this 9-year period,” Coates wrote.

Carpionato has not given any details on what it plans to build at the site, beyond stating that it would have office, retail and hotel elements.

Harris Avenue is in City Council Majority Leader Terrence M. Hassett’s ward. Hassett backed the project in front of the City Council’s Public Works Committee Tuesday night, although he said that he wants more information on the project when the land sale goes before the full council next month.

“It’s going to be an important part of completing that entire Promenade area,” Hassett said.

In addition to reducing the width of Harris Avenue, Carpionato plans to change the way the road feeds into Providence Place. Under the terms of the deal, the city would also abandon 16,423 square feet of road at the end of Harris Avenue, where it now forms a Y with Providence Place. In its place, Carpionato would give the city land it owns and use that land to reroute Harris Avenue and create a capped T style intersection with Providence Place that city planners say is preferable.

A traffic engineer hired by Carpionato supported the shifting of the roads, saying a T-shaped intersection is much safer than the current situation.

“It’s a much safer alignment. This alignment will force vehicles to slow down and stop,” said David Taglianetti, of the Watertown, Mass., firm Vanasse, Hangen Brustlin.

The city’s appraiser, Thomas Andolfo of Andolfo Appraisal Associates, Inc., pegged the value of the land Carpionato would purchase at $819,575. But because Carpionato plans to make the traffic improvements and give land to the city in exchange, the purchase price was reduced by $504,825.

To allow the new intersection to be built, Carpionato would transfer 6,295 square feet of land that it bought in 2005 — the former site of the Silver Top Diner — to the city. That land transfer is worth $314,750, according to Andolfo.

In addition, as Carpionato plans to pay for the road realignment and that project is supported by the city’s planning authorities as a necessary traffic measure, Andolfo assigned a dollar value of $155,100 to Carpionato’s work.

Taken together, the two offset the amount the city said Carpionato should pay by $504,825, bringing the final purchase price to $314,750. Carpionato has agreed to pay that amount.

A small bridge bringing Holden Street over the Woonasquatucket River is also part of the long-term plan and is approved as part of the state’s federal highway funding. But Hassett said that while the approval is there, it might take years for the money to come through.

The demolition at the produce terminal has also prompted Superior Court Judge Daniel A. Procaccini to reopen the record on the Grove Street School case. The 100-year-old school was heavily damaged when a demolition contractor began ripping it apart Feb. 3 without a completed building permit. The city took the owner, the Tarro family, to court, charging that the demolition was illegal, and Procaccini was getting ready to issue his decision.

Then he read that Anderson, who had not ordered the demolition of the school, had called for tearing down the produce terminal. Procaccini said the two cases seemed remarkably similar and he could not see why Anderson had come to different conclusions. He reopened the record and called Anderson to the stand to testify in that case, and will question the city building official himself.

dbarbari@projo.com