Greater City Providence

UPDATED: Downtown Design Review Committee to review plans for Hotel Hive at their December 10th meeting

[alert type=”info”]See more information about the hotel proposal at the end of the post.[/alert] [alert type=”muted” heading=”Downtown Design Review Committee Notice of Regular Meeting”]Monday, December 10, 2018 – 4:45 PM
Doorley Municipal Building
444 Westminster Street, 1st Floor Conference Room Providence, RI 02903

Agenda [/alert]

drc-roundOpening Session
  • Call to Order
  • Roll Call
  • Meeting Minutes of October 1, 2018
  • Acceptance of DDRC 2019 Meeting Schedule
  • Annual Election of Vice Chair
New Business

Old Providence Journal Building – Image from Google Streetview

1. DRC Application No. 18.38: 187?203 Westminster Street (Old Providence Journal Building and Kresge Building) – Proposal by Westminster Partners, LLC to convert both buildings into a new hotel. Work includes construction of a new rooftop penthouse, restoration of building facades, and installation of new storefronts and canopies.

Adjournment

More information about the proposal

Drawing of Old ProJo Building viewed from Westminster and Eddy Streets – ZDS Architecture & Interior Design

[alert type=”success”] Download Hotel Hive’s presentation to the DDRC [/alert]

Abdo Development of Washington, DC proposes the renovation of the historic Old Providence Journal and Kresge Buildings on Westminster into a 136 room boutique hotel. The hotel will carry the Hotel Hive brand, and feature a ground-level restaurant and bar, a rooftop bar, and a co-working office space on the Fulton Street side.

Ground-floor plan, Eddy Street at bottom, Westminster at right, right-click to view in new tab at larger size.

One of the reasons these buildings have been stubbornly not redeveloped over the years, is they lay out really poorly for apartments. There have been a number of office proposals for them, but our office market is historically weak, and none of those proposals ever came to fruition.

For residential, the layout of the windows and the floor plates are all wrong, and Kresge is downright impossible to do residential in. There are few windows on the street facing facades of the building, and it is very deep.

This hotel proposal is looking to get around the window problem in Kresge by introducing a new light-well at the east side of the building (between it and the Woolworth Building). This shaft, will allow for windows deeper in the building. It probably would not be a good solution for residential, as there will be windows looking at at a wall, but for a hotel, where you’re only staying for a night or few, it should work. The Old ProJo Building already has an atrium in it which will allow for interior rooms in that building to have windows.

Another option that had been floated for redeveloping these buildings was allowing the development of the air rights over them. Basically, the buildings would be hollowed out and a tower would be slid down inside the façades and grow out the top. Once the tower cleared the nieghboring Woolworth Building, it could have windows on that side and would potentially lay out much better. A use would just have to be found for the lower floors.

I don’t think there was ever a serious proposal for this sort of façade-ectomy. Thankfully we now have a proposal to restore the buildings intact. Best of luck to the developers on this project.

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.

7 comments

  • This is great for DownCity. Providence is really making an effort to build out its hotel infrastructure. With 6 hotels under construction or in planning stages, the city can be positioned to capture trade shows and conventions. The range of hotels being built are also very diversified (boutique, millennial focused, budget, extended-stay, value). These hotel rooms bring in people who are spending money; they also create foot traffic on the streets of the downtown core. I’d like to see some more live music venues downtown to round out utilization when there are not trade shows/conventions in town. As the “creative capital”, we seems to under represent music, in general. We are moving towards an Austin-style arts and culture model and they have over 100 live music venues, I can count on 1 hand what we have… and in the last 2 years there has been a decrease.

  • The DRC approved this project Monday night. There are some minor design issues with operable windows on the ground floor that need to be worked out with the Historic Commission (the project is getting historic tax credits). DRC approved with the assumption that those issues would be resolved.

  • Great idea for a hotel in the old Journal building! One question: Can we bring back Mama Teresa’s Restaurant on the first floor? The counter order style with plenty of serve yourself seating (similar to “Roma” on Federal Hill) was the best!