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Ryan T. Conaty for The New York Times Gtech, a lottery systems and services company, plans to build a new headquarters in downtown Providence.
New Momentum for Renewal Comes to Providence
By ELIZABETH ABBOTT
PROVIDENCE, R.I., Oct. 19 - This capital city, once the embodiment of urban decline, is about to write a new chapter in its story of renewal.
Gtech Holdings, the world's largest provider of lottery systems and services, plans to break ground later this year on an $88.5 million corporate headquarters in the Capital Center District, a 77-acre tract lying between the State House and the city's downtown core.
When it is finished, the project will bring more than 700 Gtech employees into Providence daily, providing another jolt of energy to the city. "It's fantastic," said Thomas Deller, director of planning and development for the city.
Gtech's move not only confirms how far Providence has come, but is also likely to spur more development in the Capital Center District, Mr. Deller said. That district, a mix of public and private space, has been key to the revival of Providence, but roughly a third of it still remains to be developed.
Gtech plans to build a 13-story, 210,000-square-foot building with retail space on the ground floor. It has chosen the USAA Real Estate Company of Texas, which has built facilities for I.B.M. and FedEx among other companies, and Commonwealth Ventures L.L.C. of Connecticut to jointly develop the project.
Providence is a good location for Gtech because of its proximity to the high-tech corridor surrounding Boston, offering a ready supply of qualified employees, said Robert Vincent, a company spokesman. Gtech currently has its headquarters in West Greenwich, R.I., a suburb about 20 miles south of Providence.
In fact, Gtech was seriously considering a site in Massachusetts for its new headquarters when officials from the state of Rhode Island and Providence came forward. The result was a package of tax breaks and other financial incentives worth more than $700 million to Gtech, including an exclusive no-bid contract to run Rhode Island's lottery system for the next 20 years. Without these concessions, Gtech would have left the state, Mr. Vincent said.
For its part, Gtech has agreed to invest $140 million in the state's lottery system and to give Providence residents preferential treatment in hiring, among other things. But judging by the enthusiasm that greeted Gtech's announcement in Rhode Island, and the speed with which the state's lawmakers approved the deal, the primary benefit of Gtech's move downtown appears to be psychological.
Although Providence calls itself the Renaissance City, momentum is needed to keep its renewal on track, and Gtech's vote of confidence in the city will help provide that, said Leslie A. Gardner, chairwoman of a commission that oversees development in the Capital Center District.
The district has almost 30 acres of public space. Of the 48 acres available for private development, roughly 18 acres are left. No corporation has built an office building in the city for 16 years. "I think Gtech will be a great catalyst for us," Ms. Gardner said.
Thirty years ago, the property that makes up the Capital Center District was a bleak area where commuters could park their cars for as little as $3.50 a day. Most of it belonged to the Providence and Worcester Railroad, a regional freight service whose origins date back to the mid-1800's. The P.& W. property had elevated train tracks that ran across the city, cutting off the commercial downtown area from the State House and surrounding government offices. So effective was this barrier that it was dubbed the Chinese Wall.
Then, as the story is told in "Providence, the Renaissance City" by two Rhode Island College professors, Francis J. Leazes Jr. and Mark T. Motte (Northeastern University Press, 2004), the larger history of transportation in the United States intervened in Providence's fate.
In 1976, spurred by energy worries and a significant increase in traffic on Interstate 95, the federal government made $1.6 billion available for railroad improvements in the Northeast Corridor. What Providence did with its share of the money was unique, according to the authors.
Instead of merely upgrading the city's tracks, a group of leaders convinced the federal government that it could dismantle the Chinese Wall and reroute the rails at no extra cost. Doing this enabled Providence to open up a vast area for development just north of the downtown, which eventually became the Capital Center District.
Specifically, 15 development parcels were created in this industrial wasteland at a total cost of roughly $169 million. "There was some very creative use of transportation money," said Deborah Melino-Wender, executive director of the 17-member Capital Center Commission.
The creativity continued in 1983, when shortly after construction began on the Capital Center District, federal money was again used for an innovative infrastructure project. This time, rivers were moved and a necklace of bridges and river walkways was created along their banks. Called Waterplace Park, this attraction has won national awards for its design and is now a popular destination for visitors. The park is also the site for a public art event called WaterFire. In WaterFire, created by the Providence artist Barnaby Evans, cauldrons of fires are lighted in the middle of the rivers as music is played. The fires lure thousands of people into the city; this is in sharp contrast to the gloomy emptiness that pervaded Providence after business hours in the 1970's and 1980's.
In all, more than $1 billion has been spent in private and public money on development projects in downtown Providence since 1980, according to Mr. Leazes and Mr. Motte. Larger projects have included the construction of the $450 million Providence Place Mall, an enclosed shopping center with more than a million square feet of retail space, which opened in 1999, and the 12-story $38 million Citizens Bank building, built in 1988.
Considering how depressed the city once was, "Providence is remarkable," said Mr. Vincent. Gtech's visitors, who come from all over the world, are invariably impressed when they see what the city has to offer, he said.
Gtech's tentative building plans include a glass tower, but the design must meet the approval of the Capital Center Commission, which has been praised for requiring developers to create projects compatible with surrounding buildings. The Gtech parcel, covering less than two acres, is strategically located at the intersection of two main thoroughfares, directly opposite the Providence Place Mall. The architect is Spagnolo/Gisness & Associates, which is based in Boston. Gtech hopes to break ground next month and complete the project in 2006.
None of this would have happened if Capital Center had not been created, according to the authors of "Providence, the Renaissance City." In essence, the project made the city bigger and enabled development to take place without having to demolish the city's many historically significant buildings. And Capital Center would not have happened without the participation of an unusual group of committed people from both the public and private sector, who put aside their different agendas for the sake of a city they shared.
"Not enough credit is given to the fact that the right people were in the right place at the right time," said Ron Marsella, a Providence developer whom many credit with coming up with the idea for Capital Center.
Mr. Marsella said he was confident that Capital Center would be fully developed one day. Even though some in Providence had hoped it would have been built out by now, he said the city had made remarkable strides in a relatively short period of time. "People are taking snapshots when they should be making movies," he said. "Thirty years in the life of the city is a snap of the fingers."
From The New York Times
. I didn't know you were from there. I know someone training at Yale-NH hospital who is living there now and loves it. It's a pretty little town, and still, I think, a well kept regional secret. The person I know there was shocked to be able to buy a place as close to the water as he did (like a block or two away) for as little as he did. He was expecting huge price runups there, and didn't find it.
