Greater City Providence

Regal Plating Building

The Regal Plating Building on Chestnut Street in the Jewelry District around 1:15pm today.

Regal Plating Building, Jewelry District

Regal Plating Building, Jewelry District

At this time, I have no explanation for why this is happening.


Update 3/31

Word from the Planning Department is that this building was not in any way protected and went through the proper channels to be removed. Why it was not part of the ICBD, I don’t know.

The DEM will be involved in remediation of pollution on site. The fact that it is so heavily polluted makes me glad that there was a guy standing on site pointing a garden hose randomly in the general direction of the demolition as I walked by. You know, to pretend to keep down the toxic dust.

Regal Plating Building, Jewelry District

Later the site will likely get a nice asphault cap which will be perfect for cars. Should make for a good landuse along the streetcar line.

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.

9 comments

  • It does explain why all the windows were out and it wasn’t boarded up. My guess, parking for Nickanees.

  • My guess was someone wanted to give me mesothelioma while I was out on my lunchtime walk.

  • My friend and I were just commenting on what might be going on with that building, we assumed it was being rehabbed, but now its all to obvious that its becoming another surface lot…

  • The building was sold and will go into America’s vast land bank awaiting a development opportunity sometime in a decade or two. In other words, as has been surmised, it will add to the Jewelry District’s ample supply of surface parking.

    P.S. Thanks for using “security word” font that can actually be read and accurately re-typed.

  • Several years ago, I heard from an environment consultant that there was serious contamination in the building, because of the plating business. Without the historic tax credit or other subsidy, it would probably have been prohibitively expensive to decontaminate the building.

    The Regal Plating site is about 23,000 square feet, which would park about 70 cars (not valet). At $7.50 per car/per day, the lot would yield $525 per day or $10,500 per month for weekdays only.

    The floor area of Regal Plating was 46,000 square feet. It could have been divided into about 24 – 1,800 square foot lofts (office, residential, or artist studio). If the 24 lofts were rented for $450 a month each, those rents would roughly equal what the owner will probably get for the parking lot ($10,500 per month).

    (A 3-Bedroom apartment is typically between 1,100 and 1,500 square feet.)

    Once again the city loses part of its tax base and architectural heritage for a short-term auto-centric goal. If the real estate taxes for a surface parking lot were the same or more as the taxes were for Regal Plating building, they probably wouldn’t have been raised.

    Surface parking lots should be outlawed. Alternately, a special surface parking lot property tax should be adopted that would equal the tax for a lot with building improvements on it.

  • I updated the original post above with the following information:


    Word from the Planning Department is that this building was not in any way protected and went through the proper channels to be removed. Why it was not part of the ICBD, I don’t know.

    The DEM will be involved in remediation of pollution on site. The fact that it is so heavily polluted makes me glad that there was a guy standing on site pointing a garden hose randomly in the general direction of the demolition as I walked by. You know, to pretend to keep down the toxic dust.

    Regal Plating Building, Jewelry District

    Later the site will likely get a nice asphault cap which will be perfect for cars. Should make for a good landuse along the streetcar line.

  • Here is the Art In Ruins post for this building. Interesting that when this building was on the market a few years ago, it was being promoted by the realtor as a student housing development opportunity.

    Art In Ruins

  • I was the ups driver down there for 22 years,yes that place was toxic as hell.green cyanide used to pool up on the floor,and I have seen many people die that worked there,but it’s in the past now

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