Greater City Providence

East Providence, Village on the Waterfront

Rendering from Village on the Waterfront LLC

ProJo reports that the East Providence Mayor and City Council are WICKED excited about the prospect of a $167 million condo, marina, commercial development on that city’s waterfront.

“Are you kidding me,” said an excited Mayor Joseph S. Larisa Jr. “This is the single greatest private economic development project in the history of East Providence. At the end, we will have an absolutely, tremendous project that frankly, no one else is willing to do. [The Chevron Corp. and Village on the Waterfront group led by Providence Realty Investment LCC] know the recession will end at some point soon, hopefully, and they want to be poised to have a project up-and-running that will be great for the city and, of course, great for them.”

“This is the best thing that has ever happened for the city,” Councilman Bruce DiTraglia said.

BEST THING EVER! I don’t want to burst anyone’s bubbles, the leaders of East Providence are certainly aware of the number of proposals that have gone nowhere on the East Providence waterfront, and certainly, they are aware that the economy… well it kinda sucks right now.

On the other hand, the developer is Chevron, yes that Chevron. If anyone has money to make a development like this happen, it would probably be an oil company. The site being developed, or more accurately, redeveloped, is the company’s former “light product terminal.”

View Village on the Waterfront in a larger map

The East Providence Waterfront Commission’s page describes the development like this:

Chevron has entered into a cooperative agreement with Village on the Waterfront LLC to transform Chevron’s former light products terminal on Veteran’s Memorial Parkway into a mixed-use community called “Village on the Waterfront.” The 26-acre site will have 600 residential units contained in townhomes, condominiums and apartments with 40,000 sf of commercial uses, including a restaurant, shops, office space and a fitness center. Ten percent of the housing units will be affordable housing, as required by Waterfront District regulations.

There will also be a kayak beach and rental store that will be open to the public, along with all open space, trails, and a proposed fishing pier. Waterfront Drive will be extended south through the site, as will a spur to the existing East Bay Bike Path. Construction is expected to begin in 2011: the project will be constructed in five phases over nine years.

The project was approved by the commission last year, the reason it is in the news now is that the city has approved a financial arrangement with the developer including a TIF.

The Village will be built in 4 phases, with the first phase projected to start in 12 to 18 months and to take 12 months to complete. The first phase encompasses mostly infrastructure, site remediation, water, sewer, electric, extending Waterfront Drive, and development of the commercial structures and some residences. East Providence Planning Director Jeanne Boyle told the Journal she expects the project to be complete in 8 to 10 years.

Jef Nickerson

Jef is Greater City Providence's co-founder, editor, and publisher. He grew up on Cape Cod and lived in Boston; Portland, Maine; and New York before settling in Providence. In addition to urbanism, Jef is interested in art, design, and ice cream. Please feel free to contact Jef if you have any question or comments about Greater City Providence.

6 comments

  • Okay, as a former resident of East Prov. this is GREAT NEWS. That poor dump has earned every bad thing people think of it, but I loved living there.
    Still I have to ask: is Chevron planning to buy the city a new sewage treatment plant too? The old one is in such bad shape they couldn’t get a grant big enough to fix it. I can only imagine the fun of an additional 2000 residents living on a waterfront that throws their own waste back at them.

  • A negative for me is I fear this will kill any already slim chance of re-using the rail ROW for light rail from Providence to Fall River via the east side train tunnel. Probably only a dream for us mass-transit minded folks anyway…

    It is good to see this moving forward and it is great that a multi-bazillion dollar oil company can drop some of their money into RI.

    Just think, $167M over 10 years is like pocket lint to Chevron.

  • I don’t know about that, this is down bay from the Washington Bridge. I think any transit line that used the tunnel to get to Fall River would eventually hook up with Route 195, it wouldn’t go this far south. But eventually, if the waterfront here were fully developed, I could see a light rail/streetcar running on Veterans Parkway and somehow tying into the tunnel at it’s northern end. That is decades away though.

  • I seem to recall the E. Prov master plan documents for the waterfront mentioning something about allowing for the possibility of a light rail connector in how everything was designed… A distant possibility right now to say the very least…

  • ProJo: East Providence condo project pushed back

    Citing Rhode Island’s shaky condominium market, a developer of Village on the Waterfront, a mixed-use project planned for a parcel off Veterans Memorial Parkway, says the first construction phase will include about 200 apartments, while plans for 400 condominiums have been pushed back until later in the build-out.

    The apartments could be completed in 2017, according to developer Michael Hennessey. About 30,000 square feet of commercial space is also part of the first phase.

  • this is overkill of this beautiful land, we have kettle point bold point and now this, more condos behind Metacomet. we have doctors on 400 veterans memeorial parkway. traffic jam this morning to get from interlocken rd to 400 veterans memorial parkway for a mammogram. please do not kill this area, I live and see what you going to become. an area like Kent farm Village. Kettle point is 828 apartments. Universal orthopedics that planning on another building for Rehab. we can’t take all this traffic. and please put this back and ask us before we die.

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