Greater City Providence

ProJo: Redeveloped Jewelry District building will include 57 apartments, restaurant space

95-chestnut

Image from Google Streetview

Work will begin soon on the redevelopment of an historic Jewelry District building into 57 apartments and ground-floor restaurant space, and the new owners hope to have the building reopened by the end of 2016.

[…] [Brian] Poitras [president of Waldorf Capital Management LLC] said architects Martha Werenfels and Ed Cifune of Durkee, Brown, Viveiros & Werenfels are leading the design project. He said the building will include a restaurant space and some common areas on the ground level and apartments on all six floors.

Greater City Providence

Promoting the smart urban growth of the Greater Providence region.

4 comments

  • Is BetaSpring still in this building? What is to become of them?

    I actually toured this building’s retail level space before, it’s great, the basement storage area and kitchen will need a lot of work but it has great skyline views.

    Will these apartments be for sale? Or lease only?

    The neighborhood is coming together! Between Brown, JWU, Private graduate dorms, etc. there should be plenty of new residents come 2016-17. Maybe 1,000 new people?

    I wonder why its so much more appealing to do these apartment conversions all of a sudden? On this message board, we have been talking about this for over two years… how turning our vacant office space (80% vacancies by some reports) into apartments to satisfy the 0% vacancy rate of apartments in the downtown area. Glad to see our hopes coming into reality. Hopefully we are on our way to adding 2,000 residents downtown in the next 5 years (41% increase over current levels). My next question would be, why are the parcels with the higher height restrictions (closer to 95) not being snapped up by a developer to build a high rise residential building? The views over the West End and Providence skyline would be great.

  • Betaspring isn’t really Betaspring anymore. They haven’t hosted a class in a couple of years and are focusing on RevUp now, which is a totally different model and doesn’t require residency in state. Last I heard Founder’s League was looking for new space, though.

    But I don’t know the status of that.

  • From the people that I speak with, there is demand, but they units have to be in a building that has a low condo or association fee. Someone told me that Waterplace had a $600 monthly condo fee, I’m not sure if that’s true, but that is a lot of money in Providence. A City where the property taxes are some of the highest in New England.

    Providence should be embracing new residents, since they are the only thing that will get them more tax revenue, literally. Speaking with tourists at my job, I notice that people always say that Providence would be a great place to own a vacation condo (these people are typically from a rural area and what an urban retreat, which sounds odd, but it’s their reality). The conversation always tends to gravitate towards the high property taxes. We also have our governor talking about a vacation home/second home tax. Rhode Island will just never stop shooting itself in the foot. There should be incentives to get people to live here, and not just anywhere; incentives to live downtown. We can’t have a strong state without a strong capital city.

    Then there is the entire demographic of people like me. I grew up outside Providence, and rarely ventured in. I commuted to Boston for work after graduating from a RI university. I don’t have any interest in buying a home in Cranston, or Warwick, etc. I want to live downtown. So I rent. I rent at a massive premium because there is no inventory.

    Has there ever been any exploration into creating a downtown Providence “economic zone”? Where new full-time, apartment owners can enjoy a property tax discount of holiday that gradually ends over time? I have always thought this would be extremely attractive to developers for new-builds. They would get a tax stabilization plan, and the people they are selling to would get generous tax breaks as well, on a temporary basis. It seems so obvious, maybe that’s why it hasn’t been explored. Naturally, these new residents would drive other commerce and create an economic multiplier effect. Eventually, all residents of Providence would enjoy a lower overall property tax rate.

Providence, RI
39°
Rain
6:32 am7:08 pm EDT
Feels like: 30°F
Wind: 15mph NNW
Humidity: 91%
Pressure: 29.64"Hg
UV index: 0
SatSunMon
57°F / 37°F
57°F / 36°F
54°F / 37°F