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COMPLETE: Palmer Block | The Cosmopolitain

Nyuszi

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Nyuszi Unincorporated Area

Nyuszi

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From http://www.artinruins.com/arch/redevelop/palmer/index.php:

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The Providence Business News reported businessmen Edward Shore and Bob Russell are developing the Palmer Block building at Fountain Street and Mathewson Street into 12 luxury condominiums. The project is called The Cosmopolitan. The condos will range in price from $500,000 to $1 million. The building most recently housed a Greyhound bus terminal, city offices and other businesses.

Shawomet Realty is the developer, and their number is listed as 828.5040. Apparently, there are six units left. It looks like a great building in great shape. The photos of the interior were taking from the ground floor, where it looks like they are getting ready for a restaurant.

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Nyuszi Unincorporated Area

Nyuszi

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The story about this building's development was from way back in June '03 and I didn't see anything about this here already.. hope I'm not duplicating.

Anyway, I noticed this place as I was walking from Kennedy Plaza to Trinity this evening and this strikes me as a very good thing. Supposedly only 6 units are still available and it appeared that there was already a doorman posted in the lobby. So if there aren't already folks living there, they will be moving in soon. Though I know it raises a lot of issues surrounding the displacement of the artists Providence is supposedly encouraging, I think that some amount of gentrification of downtown is necessary. After all, once people with money & power start living there, there will suddenly be a lot more pressure to fix things like sidewalks, crosswalks and general security.

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Cotuit Megalopolis

Cotuit

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wow ... only 12 units ... the square footage must be huge!

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The top floor is one giant apartment for the developers, and the ground floor is set for retail. That only leaves 5 floors for 11 apartments, or 12 if the developers' doesn't count toward that 12.

I believe they are almost fully sold at this point, if not fully. There are definately people living there now. I really wish they would hurry up and get some retail on the ground floor. That pic was taken from the convention centre, and it is not exactly good for visitors to gaze out upon all that vacant retail space.

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kinematix Whistle-Stop

kinematix

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I recently met with the real estate agents selling these units and got a tour of the building. There are some people living there already but a few of the units are not finished yet or sold. The square footage is massive (3200+) and the work they've done is of considerable quality. They will probably let them go for closer to 800K which is by no means a cheap condo but compare that to the building on the corner of Benefit and Angell where smaller units (1500ish sq ft) are going for 1.3 million+!!

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Nyuszi Unincorporated Area

Nyuszi

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And best thing about your cool $1 million dollar condo is you're merely steps from two stripclubs! (Sportsmans? and The Satin Doll).

Urban living at its best!

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:rofl:

As a side, slightly off-topic story... When I first moved to Providence, a friend of mine from Portsmouth, NH came down and we went to Trinity for dinner. We had time to kill before picking someone up at the train and going for dessert, so I thought I'd give her a little tour of downtown, particularly I wanted to show off the "Gotham" building, so we headed to Kennedy Plaza, only I didn't know enough to cut over to Washinton St immediately, so we both got a lovely dose of harassment from the Sportsmans' patrons. Great first impression!

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Cotuit Megalopolis

Cotuit

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but compare that to the building on the corner of Benefit and Angell where smaller units (1500ish sq ft) are going for 1.3 million+!!

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I was wondering how far out of my price range those were, my office is right near there. Nice to know I don't have a snowball's chance in hell. :lol:

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  • 3 months later...
Cotuit Megalopolis

Cotuit

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Anyone have information on possible storefront retail/restaurant at the Palmer Block?

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I wonder about that everytime I go by there (which is almost every day). The lack of storefront retail there worries me a bit. It's a pretty good location, the foot traffic there isn't terrific, Westminster Street is a better place to locate if you're going to move into Downcity. We have a lot of projects coming up with ground floor retail, I have this horrible vision of it all sitting empty.

I think the Palmer Block is just in a slightly weird area. Not much foot traffic uses Fountain Street, most of it is on Sabin near the convention center. I think if/when the Fogarty site is redeveloped, then the Palmer Block's retail spaces will fill in.

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Cotuit Megalopolis

Cotuit

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A few things regarding this were on the DRC agenda tonight and were approved. This is to prepare fr the relocation of Murphy's restaurant. They wanted to replace one window on the front with a door, the door is needed to meet fire codes and ADA accessibility requirements (the current door is up a step or two). There appears to have been a door in the proposed location at one point in the past. The new door will be in a style keeping with the existing door at Matthewson Street (in keeping with the historic design of the building). Also one window on the back of the building needed to be used for kitchen ventilation, this window faces the parking lot off Matthewson Street. The applicant made a point of mentioning that Murphy's has actually purchased the ground floor of this building, they are fully invested and not looking to move away anytime soon. It was mentioned that they are not allowed to put awnings on the building and will be using vinyl lettering inside the windows (seems there's some anit signage issues here, this really needs fixing, a well made sign or even awnings would not hurt this building).

As I said, this was approved. I was speaking to the people making the presentation in the elevator on the way out. They said this was the last approval that was needed to get this project going and Murphy's is eager to be relocated quickly, perhaps by the end of the year. Good news in my book! :thumbsup:

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jencoleslaw Town

jencoleslaw

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was there any talk about the condo owners upstairs being upset about a rowdy irish bar moving downstairs? I wonder what will go in Murphy's current space. I'm also surprised they can vent the kitchen out the frst floor back--i thought it had to vent above the tallest residential unit if it is a new restaurant...

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Cotuit Megalopolis

Cotuit

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I don't think they would be grandfathered since they were looking for a new vent. I think all post-Station Fire codes apply to this one. Who knows, maybe they'll put this vent in and then Mike Brown will come around and wave his finger at it, and they'll be building a chimney.

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  • 7 months later...

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