Send an email by 5p today to share your thoughts about the proposed 550ft tower. If allowed the tower will overshadow the city and ruin the best new park in the city too. Let your voice be heard. The meeting is Wed the 18th second floor of 225 Dyer St. at 5p. Be ready to show up, protest and let Fane and the 195 commission know we don’t want that tower! Email RIHPHC at hphc.info@preservation.Ri.gov

So another tall building that will sit empty like the other one? Rad!

Let it happen and stop trying to withhold progress and development with all the redlines with the bs of the historical community..

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Picture a luxury condo building at least 2x the size of all the rest, it will dominate all views of the city and eat up sorely needed public park space. This is a terrible thing for the city.

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There's a nation wide housing crisis, as the population grows but the number of individuals per household is dropping. The amount of jobs and tax dollars this will generate for the state is a good thing. Not to mention allowing Providence to catch up to other modern cities. RI has been behind the ball on a lot of things (casinos, legalizing marijuana), so I'd like to see progress

This project is for luxury housing, not affordable housing (there’s no shortage of luxury condos). The project and developers are probably getting away tax free for decades like most developers in town. In 5-10 years the people who live there will pay taxes and shop at restaurants yay!

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We need more housing in the state. This tower isn’t really the answer.

Besides that, Fane doesn’t have experience with a project of this scale and he is getting a sweetheart deal for some seriously prime property.

The City can and should look for better from elsewhere.

My opinion is we should be shitting out projects of this size whenever and wherever possible and if I hear one more NIMBY dipshit bitch about "neighborhood character" or "keep [x major city] under [x feet]" to hold up any and all development I'm going to blow a gasket.

This will not be affordable housing. If the city just maintains the park it could open a seasonal outdoor concert venue and generate more income. The trickle down effect for our economy isn’t as beneficial as a tax free construction project for a luxury condo building.

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Mate I agree with your premise but you really need to look up the definition of capitalist.

I'd be happy to have work in Providence instead of exclusively Boston for a change, hope it goes through

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The lot it's on has always been zoned for development. It is adjacent to the park but not legally part of it. If Fane doesn't get built there, something else will.

As for the views, they could've said the same about the Superman building when it was built, and the Turk's Head before that. It's a valid reason to make sure the design is as aesthetically sound as possible, but not to kill the project outright.

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F*ck affordable housing... lets rich people move in and spend money in town and pay the ridiculously high taxes we pay... build affordable housing outside of the downtown Providence.... Pawtucket, Central Falls, Johnston, Cranston all this can used the affordable housing you talk..

the biggest opponents of this project are the other luxury apartment building owners since this will increase the supply of housing by a lot and lower prices for their rentals. I think that's a good thing.

Not opposed to more housing, and completely agree that they should be building up and not out. It sucks that we’ll lose the park, but this is a city.

That said, how much are these apartments going to rent for? Not expecting Section 8 but if they cut into a middle class single or more household income by more than 30% (relative to unit size) then they’re useless. Obviously it’s going to be something like starting at one bedroom for 2500 a month.

The building is fucking ugly and (still) looks like an oscillating fan.

Totally agree, have they put out RFPs and this was really the best they got?

Where is the second tower going to go? I want Providence to go FULL Middle Earth.

“Probably” you don’t even know for sure 💀💀 literally arguing with a straw man here

I still don't know enough about this to have an opinion. Why shouldn't it happen? The need for it seems clear, but evidently a bunch of people hate it and I'm not really sure why.

The NIMBYism in this case is mostly coming from other developers. They want to protect their luxury apartments value by keeping the supply low.

I believe he came to them unsolicited. The just giving away for what will likely be an eyesore full of luxury condos is what bothers me.

Study after study shows that this type of project does nothing for the overall housing stock and sustainability. The developer can just pay extra fees or fines and not include the number of planned “affordable” units.

The state needs to focus on building housing for low and middle income families, that’s what is needed.

Providence could use the tax dollars being allocated for this for so much more, like actually building affordable housing. We need to stop allowing luxury developers to change the entire fabric of our cities because of their own personal desire for growth and power.

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I dunno, I think Mr. Aluminum is just someone who recognizes the scope of the problem and that path to a solution. Demand has far outpaced supply for housing.

Opposing things like this will only work to make housing continue to cost more.

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>We need more housing in the state. This tower Housing isn’t really the answer.

The absolute mental gymnastics NIMBYs will go through.

I think the arguments against it come down to generic opposition to any sort of tax breaks to encourage development and the location. That and some generic opposition because it won't be affordable units, ergo it must not help

Prior to the redesign, the building was uglier too. So there's probably a lingering view on that.

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Hit us with the analysis on that, ill standby

If you build your incentive system around garbage projects like this you will only end up with garbage. The 195 committee and the state can both get fucked for running roughshod over the city's provenance here.

I am not against projects. I am against this specific one. One problem in this forum is that anyone who says no to this piece of ugly tribute to ego bullshit tower is that we are "anti development" but that's a bunch of shit. There are plenty of better developments and better use for this space that integrates the neighborhood and there are better sites in the city for a project of this scale.

If your attitude is "we have to take what we can get" you end up with a lot of shit. I know a lot of people weren't aware of things during the last boom cycle but a bunch of projects that had high hopes and destroyed city blocks went basically nowhere and left a patchwork of useless parking lots that we are still struggling to infill 15 years later. Our enforcement is typically lagging. There is very little stopping Fane from digging a hole in the ground the saying "oops market conditions" and we are left with a hole in the ground or more surface parking.

preach

Can you provide a little insight as to how building a large tower full of luxury housing is considered progress for the city? I think I’m missing something here.

More housing is good, even if it's luxury housing. Would it be better if it was for the average person? Sure, but it's still better than nothing at all. I live in one of those "luxury" mill apartments, and the place is packed full, not sitting with empty units. I tried to move to a cheaper unit in the building, and there was only one unit open, out of hundreds of units. We need more housing, especially if you want things to get cheaper. Literally anything that isn't more single-family housing.

If the rich-ass renters want to move into a $4k/mo apartment, let them. It means they are moving out of a $2k/mo apartment which could be filled by someone with a lower income.

We need more housing supply, luxury or otherwise, a bigger tax base, and more construction jobs are good.

But it’s a hell of a lot nicer to walk around DC or Paris with their height/zoning restrictions than it is Houston - and we paid planners to advise us of this obvious fact, we adopted those guidelines before we even removed the highway, then made all developers (so far) abide by them.

Moreover, its present location is going to be surrounded by the new RIPTA hub, and the Brown Medical school-hardly a desirable set up for luxury condos.

The wise answer which NO ONE WILL DO - is trade this parcel for the one behind Turks Head, or the parking lot at Weybosset and Union, or Westminster and Snow (you know, where all the high rises, restaurants and other urban amenities already exist) and have him build it there.🤷🏼‍♂️

How much are we paying for it?

How much income will it generate?

Are there any contractual stipulations involved which would offer a massive payout (paid by ri taxpayers) to developers and/or organizers if the project fails for an unforseen reason?

PS: I lol'd at the photoshop job making the canal look like clear water.

The move to remote work for many has lead people to spread out from HCOL areas to Mid and Lower COL. There's already people with money coming into RI from Boston, New York, and elsewhere competing for limited housing stock. Maybe this tower will serve as a magnet for those with the dough and allow others to more easily find places to rent. Idk, I haven't seen the data. But I'm not about to oppose it for vague NIMBYist reasons.

Please explain to me how these luxury units will help low and middle income families.

I don't have an opinion on the design either way, and we definitely do need more housing but, I just wish it was going on one of the nearby parking lots or something. I really like that park, it's one of the few bits of big open green space in downtown, and a lot of people hang out down there in the warmer months. For the record, I don't really care about the sun flowers getting torn up to become apartments because nobody really used that green space for anything.

Thank you

I think the state did its usual of being so desperate for a quick boon they picked whoever schmoozed them enough. It reeks of something like a 38 Studios deal, where at least the studio delivered a good product but their finances were junk.

Has this tower secured financing? Because to me the shallow work list of the developer (they did a tower 10 years ago) combined with increasing interest rates would flag them as a high risk applicant for something of this scale in a city that doesnt yet have this scale.

As a city, Providence appeals a lot to people who work in Boston and want to save a bit on rent without going full suburb. A luxury tower doesn’t really mesh with that dynamic well.

This guy urbanists.

This is good how it's supposed to work. If you claim to be a capitalist, then the market will take care of the pricing. Yes, we need more affordable units, but blocking housing projects is not going to make them appear suddenly

where exactly is this proposed to be?

I think that by now, we should all be aware that the I-195 commission is just a bunch of crooks giving valuable property away to their rich friends. (Either that or they are shit business people, either way we got fucked)

https://www.golocalprov.com/business/the-195-commission-blasted-for-raiding-downtown-businesses-paolino-calls-me

This was supposed to be green space https://www.providencejournal.com/story/news/local/2022/07/21/taxpayer-financed-providence-pavilion-downtown-restaurant-owners-angry-threat-business/10085804002/

The land for trader Joes got sold at $100,000

https://www.wpri.com/news/local-news/providence/10-years-later-old-195-land-is-getting-developed-but-land-sales-fall-far-short/

Crooks fighting over who is going to do the crookery http://www.gcpvd.org/2018/10/03/wpri-senate-president-wants-to-strip-providence-of-zoning-oversight-on-195-land/

I like the design, if it'll bring more money to the city and state then let's go for it. I'm getting tired of driving to Massachusetts to make a decent wage

Big tower good

There is also the parking lot across from the civic center that was supposed to be a tower (former public safety complex).

My take is sure why the hell not?

The tax breaks are bullshit but we're up to our eyeballs in that bullshit, blocking this to fight tax breaks is using a tiki drink umbrella to stop the rain

Affordability is mostly a matter of supply and demand. Most new construction isn't affordable the same way most new cars aren't affordable, but there won't be used cars on the market if no one buys the new ones. This will lower rents across the city as rich people move here instead of outbidding you on what should be cheaper places. This explains it well.

And while it may be too close to 95 for Mr. Fane, that one the city presumably owns.

The same ones who call this an eyesore would cry if they took down that nasty bridge that’s stuck up.

Providence is behind the ball because it hasnt developed a strong economic niche outside of being a satellite within the Boston Urban Area. A lot of its growth is the result of spillovers from Bostons strong growth and housing boom.

The tower doesnt change that dynamic to be more sustainable for RI, it just doubles down. When I-195 was moved to make way for that parcel the rationale was that the land would be used to attract new business opportunities and create an incubator for a stronger biotech niche. The 20 years of development failure since then have at best yielded 5 over 1s and a Trader Joes, or expanded/new office space for existing economic fixtures (Brown). Its better than nothing, but not good considering thats the scale of development that some suburbs achieve in their downtowns. Fane reads like a wild moonshot to try and get something to be proud of.

Rhode Islands state officials just suck at development, or perhaps they think its easy. 195 reads to me like somebody trying to emulate the aesthetics of a successful economic development strategy without understanding how to get there. Youre right that RI consistently, regularly falls behind at every turn. Quonset, Tiverton, and Newport are all cases where a casino venture could have been well executed, but that ship sailed. Hell, this parcel would have been great for a casino if Encore hadn’t been built.

In my opinion a good place to start smashing zoning and developing is Warwick and Pawtucket. Jefferson Boulevard is full of wasted potential and its a shame that its train station is basically going to waste.

Spot on. People don't seem to understand that any new housing is good for affordability.

People forget that when that 195 land became available, it was supposed to be a flood of business building. It's been a trickle and an underwhelming one at that. The main take away has been that even with prime city land up for grabs, few want to do business with providence or RI.

Best case for this it becomes like Carnegie Tower in Portsmouth. Built and opened right before a major housing slump, high vacancy rates, takes a decade to start attracting a decent volume of tenants mostly seeking speculative ownership, no long term impact or adjustment to state/local development trajectory.

Unless the increase in the quantity of housing creates an increase in the quantity demanded for housing (which would be exceedingly unusual), increasing the supply of a good reduces the the value, and thus the cost, of all goods on the market.

To break it down, someone moves here from Boston. They decide to live in the fane tower instead of outbidding a local on a nice place in fox point. As a result, the local is no longer outbidding locals in slightly less desirable (and pricy) neighborhoods. Etc…

There is literally zero legitimate controversy on the topic - increasing the quantity of housing available lowers the cost of housing. Period.

Thanks for the most rational argument against this I've heard so far. I'm not familiar with the 195 commission guidelines or how they were arrived at, but I'd like to learn more. My pet peeve is all the zoning restrictions and yet every project seems to get a variance. Either decide the zoning should change, or follow the rules!

Will this be luxury or affordable?

Luxury buildings like this are a fishtank for rich people. They would live in Providence anyway. With this tower, they will be contained in one spot and not compete for lower tier housing.

This statement is pretty easily debunked. Boston has grown their housing downtown at an exponential rate in the past ten years and housing costs have continued to grow regardless of the supply.

Minimal amounts of research would have brought you to this conclusion but you’ve opted to do zero.

Assuming what you’re saying is rooted in actual data and fact and not just an overall wild assumption, how exactly is that progress for this city? What does having another place for rich people to live do to better the lives of everyone else?

The last thing Providence needs is a seasonal outdoor concert venue.

It's prime property but it's been available for over a decade and it's been almost seven years since the first proposal for 3 towers there. Have there been any serious suitors with funding and a development plan that have expressed interest for this land?

If it's that desirable, surely, there'd be other interest, right?

Well obviously the polis in this state are not really interested in working for the people. Then I say let them keep it up that end and play their games with each other up there.

Yeah having lived in Boston and watched all the towers go up and housing costs continue to rise, it’s simply not factual.

Housing is not the same as guns and butter. You can’t just build an expensive good and expect it to decrease overall demand on a sector if the damand is at a lower price.

There are examples closer to home too. How’s that fancy tower and community In Portsmouth doing? I think the tower might finally be at full occupancy.

> Assuming what you’re saying is rooted in actual data

Yes. As [1] plenty [2] of [3] research [4] shows [5]. In terms of data & research, this is uncontroversial.

> how exactly is that progress?

Small steps. We need more housing. This is housing, however imperfect. I would appreciate more housing, be it constructed by the government or private development, towers or duplexes, apartment buildings or townhomes, I don't really care. There is a housing crisis. Let the housing get built.

Luxury

Is this development purely residential? From what I’ve seen RI should also be focusing on commercial space. As MA real estate gets more ridiculous people are moving farther and farther from the city. From my armchair it seems like RI is in a great position to attract workers from MA but is there office space for them to occupy?

Sorry to say,they are not interested in more housing for low and mids. They can't line their pockets with money from them. Big business always wins. Sorry to feel that way,but in all my years ,it's always a repeating theme.

None of the links you provided support your assertion that the rich people in the city will live here and no longer compete for housing with everyone else.

Each of those links support the theory that market rate housing (what is usually termed luxury housing as a marketing ploy) leads to reductions in rent in the nearby neighborhood. The leading theory on why this empirical effect exists is that it increases slack in lower tiers of the housing market. Please, read the discussion section of these papers for further mention of this and other potential explanations. Or, better yet, search the literature yourself.

What is your theory of housing here? Do you think that this tower will attract people to Providence who otherwise would not have moved here? Where would wealthy people live otherwise?

I would be interested to see how many people on here are actually Providence residents.

I think this tower is not the answer to the housing crisis in Providence and I think it’s naive to believe it is. Luxury development is not the solution in any of the links you provided. We don’t need this, we need our tax dollars to be invested in making more affordable housing, not to support the desire for a private developer to gain more wealth and power.

Exactly. People skip past this because 1 single building doesn't magically solve all of the problems or something. It's so short-sighted cause this problem is going to continue to get worse.

"But I can't afford this housing"

Way too out of place. I strongly dislike it and I hope it doesn’t go through, at least make it fit the other building aesthetic

I also don't think it's the solution. But I do think its new housing. And new housing is a solution, as evidenced by the existing literature.

Do I like this tower? No. Does it provide something that the city, state, and region needs? Yes. Could affordable housing be better? Sure. But the choice is not between this tower and affordable housing. The choice is between this tower and nothing.

We have barely built any housing in decades. It's a crisis. We are losing our privilege to be picky about what does get build. Just build the damn tower. We can build affordable hosing too. Or more market rate housing. Just build something.

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Fucking thank you!

Poor people need to come together and stop these swindlers

I loved the original design, but the update is pretty boring.

Looks like a tower

Yes! Build it already!

if building new is not progressing on Idk what progress is I'm so sorry.. we all should be still Leaving on tree branches like monkeys

Go for it.

And your assertion is that if they didn’t grow their housing the costs would not have risen more than they did? And the research you have to support that?

I guess that’s a no on the research, eh?

Does that assume the rich people moving there will come from Providence itself? And not Boston or other areas? I also think new construction could be affordable, we just need to put down the public money to make it so. I'm not necessarily against the tower tbf.

I think it’s great for the city

>Minimal amounts of research would have brought you to this conclusion but you’ve opted to do zero.

Hmm…. Tell me again, how many new housing units built in Boston in the last 10 years, how many new residents, and how many new jobs.

Building the towers didn’t cause more people to move to Boston. It’s emergence as a biotech hub with many high paying jobs did. The new luxury construction has net reduced the impact of this growth in demand beyond what it otherwise would have.

People were moving to Boston for those jobs. The only question is how many locals would no longer be able to compete for housing as a result.

But hey - I’m the one who hasn’t done research. Sure.

ETA: Just to be exceedingly clear - the construction of the fane tower isn’t going to cause people to move the PVD. People making the decision to move to PVD (ie people who live in Boston but now only commute 1x / week post-COVID) do so because it offers something the alternative doesn’t (in the above example, lower CoL). The fane tower will reduce the impact some small number of those people would otherwise have on the housing market when they financially outcompete locals for existing housing.

There is a TON of vacant office space downtown. It’s pretty sad. Our bldg is 80% vacant.

Absolutely terrible idea. This is not the solution. This is about profiting under the guise of a solution.

👏👏👏

That's a big part of my feelings on this - while I'd prefer the city find other investors and ways of making some big moves, it's been some 30 years since the last BIG move and the city is crawling forward. I love this city enough to want to see it have some progress without kicking this away and waiting (who knows how many more) years for another OFFER to come (years more away from that coming to fruition). They need to do something, and waiting several more years or decades for the perfect thing to fall in our lap just isn't practical.

There’s already plenty of rich people moving from Boston to Providence regardless. It’s better for them to be competing for new luxury apartments that most people can’t afford, than competing for the limited existing housing against the Rhode Islanders who are already struggling and getting outbid.

That's a good point

Less housing just means that anyone who already owns a home is sitting pretty.

The less supply that gets filled the higher remaining property prices will be.

Casinos are awful they produce nothing of value to society, we are better off without them.

Just places where poor people who are desperate and bad at math can lose their money.

As much as people like me might parrot talking points of organizations like PPS it is amazing to me that people are putting forward the idea that this makes any difference to the housing supply issues which affect low income people far more than luxury buyers. This is a building trades talking point, not reality. If you want to dent the housing crisis then you can do it with appropriate scale housing as easily as you can with expensive towers. Our real estate is not at a premium multiple that towers are needed.

I like towers and skyline too. I was a heavy proponent of the Westin condos and waterplace etc. But stop trying to justify this junky piece of crap with "we need housing". It's a straw man for this project and worse plays the idiotic game of taking a genuinely important issue and trivializing it to justify a bad project.

At least have the honesty to say "I work in the trades and just want the job" or "I like seeing steel rising no matter what it is" or "I actually never go to and/or hate Providence but think I know better than Providence residents what is good for them."

Totally. I'd get not wanting to just jump at the first offer but the idea that this is some supremely desired parcel of land we're underselling? It just doesn't line up with what's happened.

I would hope that whatever purchase price for the land has at least adjusted to account for the real estate bubble market correction we've had since 2016 but I'm not going to pretend I know enough to say what is or isn't a good deal on that beyond two things

1. Right now, it's wasted space. Parks are cool. This is still wasted space. It was never meant to be permanent green space.

2. It sorta seems like there's only one interested buyer that isn't Brown University. I don't even know if they have interest, I'm just assuming they would and they're the one entity you can not do.

> If the rich-ass renters want to move into a $4k/mo apartment, let them. It means they are moving out of a $2k/mo apartment which could be filled by someone with a lower income.

The sooner we all get past the initial sting of "Luxury condo coming soon!" and realize that this is exactly what's going to happen I think we'll all come to an agreement that this is eventually going to be a good thing.

Build it- Provides Housing, parking, dining/entertainment. Its far enough from the river and provides great programming/security for the adjacent park. The views from this location/height would be the best around. Its location is a few blocks from the financial district and doesn't impose on the east side or jewelry district. It will not infringe on any sort of historical element of the city and is situated next to existing developments/infrastructure. I don't see any issue with the height as it's in scale with other high-rise buildings, literally blocks away. Its style is welcomed in my opinion as the skyline is already quite diverse with material/style and all represent a certain time in history. Over time, those who oppose will welcome it, especially once they view it in person as I believe it will be impressive. The main arguments are immaterial (in my opinion).

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To be accurate, one of the main reasons people want to live in Providence is because of the historical BS.

So, we probably should pay attention to it.

The tower will absolutely not “overshadow” the city, that’s exaggerated fear-mongering BS.

Skyscrapers belong in cities. If you don’t like urban development, then you don’t belong in an urban area. Full stop.

-- https://www.golocalprov.com/business/dateline-1924-dont-let-them-build-that-horrible-industrial-bank-building-it

Perfect find.

It assumes people tend to decide where they want to live, then figure out housing. A new luxury apartment complex doesn't influence rich people from Boston moving here anymore than an old affordable housing project in Worcester influences you to move there.

Agreed, but this tower does nothing to harm the historical BS. It's being built on a vacant lot that historically was a highway underpass.

It's not really out of place though. It's four blocks from the current tallest building in the state. The renderings don't do it any favors though by having the rest of the skyline look tiny and washed out in the background. They make the Fane tower look like it'sa towering behemoth halfway to Cranston. In reality, it's only going to be 20% taller than the Superman Building, and only twice as far from it as the Hospital Trust tower.

From an ethical standpoint I agree. I don't think a casino alone necessarily gives a state a real competitive edge. I've been to some miserable towns whose sole enterprise is an enormous towering casino and its sad. Niagara NY isn't exactly fun.

From an economic standpoint, Rhode Island's economy is so heavily dependent on tourism and the service industry that it could use anything that helps to draw more foot traffic downtown, including in the off season. It may help to complement existing strengths Providence has with its music, arts, and food scene. Accessibility is another major factor. RI's three main casinos are either closed (Newport Grand), undersized (Tiverton), or they're Twin River which is like a "local compromise" you head to instead of the larger regional attractions of Foxwoods, Mohegan, and Encore Boston Harbor. Quonset was a bit of a shame because its well poised to leverage ferry service to the Vineyard, Newport, and Providence and there was an abundance of available open parcels. They're now parking lots, solar farms, or storage areas with scattered manufacturing facilities - and GDEB and Toray provide good jobs - but again it could have been a bit more strategically used.

Trust me, I'd rather have a company like Samsonite set up offices. Hell, I'd even compromise with Hasbro moving downtown. But, they aren't. The Superman building can't even get going with a tenant thanks to its clown of an owner.

Edit: BTW most of my blame here is laid squarely at the state for not lighting a fire under the asses of communities outside of Providence, and also Providence, to upzone or engage in some more conscientious regional planning. It's a small state. It should not be this cumbersome.

>probably getting away tax free for decades

Why get upset about a guess when you could take a second to learn the actual answer?

https://www.wpri.com/news/local-news/providence/fane-tower-slated-to-get-54-million-property-tax-break/

> The high-rise luxury apartment building planned for Dyer Street in Providence would get more than $54 million in property tax breaks over 20 years, according to newly released projections by the tax assessor.

>The Hope Point Tower, often referred to as the Fane tower, would still pay about $69 million in property taxes over the course of their tax stabilization agreement (TSA), compared to $123 million if there was no TSA.

Hold up. I didn’t know about this

>a seasonal outdoor concert venue and generate more income

How do you figure that? Concert ticket sales would need to be $3.5m per year to match the tax revenue. How much would a ticket to a small park concert cost, $20 tops? So we would need 175,000 attendees to break even, even if we ignore all the costs of building and maintaining a concert venue. We're not regularly filling our existing venues, and another one won't really induce more demand will it?

So a concert venue will 1.) Make the city less money, and 2.) Complete will existing arts in the city.

Doesn't sound like a good plan to me.

I just don’t think it fits the vibe of the area, it looks too modern and would stick out like a sore thumb.

Luxury housing 100 yards from a power plant...

Does Rhode Island actually exist or are y’all just a really big city.

Screw it, slap it up

If someone moves into a $4K apartment, it doesn't make the $2K apartment more affordable. It only makes it available which means someone living with roommates in a $4K apartment will probably move into the $2K apartment by themselves.

What's also likely to happen is a landlord will see that somebody moved to a higher price department, do a spiff and spit job to fancy up their apartment then charge $3.5 K.

Building more expensive condos will not do anything to drop the cost of an apartment. It only free up lower-priced properties which are still too expensive.

Almost every single plot of 195 land has buildings in the planning stages or already completed. Several buildings were proposed, funded, and built on the 195 land since this building was first proposed. The developer has owned the parcel for years and has had the green light to build for years. He doesn’t have the funding. As building costs & interests rates rise, he just keeps dumbing down the design and pretending he will somehow be able to fund this next version. The developer is unreliable and the 195 commission should put the parcel back on the market so someone with a serious proposal can build there.

The Jewelry District Association, and the PPS both disagree with your analysis.

Regardless of what you or I think, Providence is in part nicer now - and desired by developers - because of the efforts of the PPS, so if they are vocal about its deleterious effects than we should listen.

But They didn't plan for future electrical and other mechanical demand so it has issues now - -

but useful enuf for nearly 100 years - -

>The developer has owned the parcel for years and has had the green light to build for years.

This sentence is great because it has two lies in it. Neither of those things are remotely true. Just pure unadulterated fiction.

You or literally any competent economist, who to believe…?

Given the difficult in getting moving forward with the tower, I wonder why that is????

>I think this tower is not the answer to the housing crisis in Providence and I think it’s naive to believe it is

Nobody has ever or will ever claim it is. But there's no solution that can skip past the "build a shit ton of new housing fast" part of the equation.

​

> We don’t need this, we need our tax dollars to be invested in making more affordable housing, not to support the desire for a private developer to gain more wealth and power.

Would your opinion on this be the same if there were zero tax dollars going towards it? Cause, boy, do I have a fucking newsflash for you

He’s had the option to buy the land since 2018, I can’t confirm he ever closed the deal, so fair point, maybe he doesn’t actually own it yet but the land has been set aside for him & only him to buy for years.

The last official hurdle at the RI Supreme Court was cleared last year to start construction

At this point, the ball is in his court. Build the building or let someone who is serious about building buy it.

You cannot develop an aesthetic successfully mixing old and new if you never build anything new.

>If your attitude is "we have to take what we can get" you end up with a lot of shit.

And if your attitude is “our way or nothing at all” you get Providence. The difference is that reasonable people can disagree on what’s shit, but nothing is the same to everyone.

He's never had the option to buy until the project was fully approved. A legal battle over zoning was started like 5 years ago and took until last Summer to be resolved. It's worth noting that suit was financed by competing property owners.

By that point, yes, a fuckton has changed about the cost of literally everything, so they went for a redesign that still needs formal approval before the sale happens.

At no point has there ever been a point where construction could have started and there's really nothing to suggest funding the project is a hurdle beyond the developer not wanting to go above the 300ish million price tag.

We need housing. All kinds of housing. Build this now.

1985 called and they want their tower back

More housing is good. And those who are going to complain about but "this luxury housing and this is not going to get Rhode Islanders in". Oh yeah? Well now the Superman building apartments have to compete with this. Sorry but cry is free.

Providence sucks to drive through. I think that there will be more of what Fidelity did in Smithfield and what Citizens did in Johnston. Moving a short distance outside of Providence means a reasonable commute for a large swath of southern MA. Employers need an applicant pool. I’m still new to RI but those are my impressions.

Great arguments! Build it already!!

truth! build a thousand of these

advocating for greenfield developments eh? how 1986 of you!

An extra 2,000 people living downtown would provide critical mass for the neighborhood and make it more sustainable. These next handful of projects are so important. Build it!

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Still ugly…

RI skyline has been stagnant for a while, time to breathe some new life into the city and make it vibrant again. I like this project on many levels.

The design is trash and the Fanes are the walking dead. Look at them.

>The wise answer which NO ONE WILL DO - is trade this parcel for the one behind Turks Head, or the parking lot at Westminster and Union, or Westminster and Snow (you know, where all the high rises, restaurants and other urban amenities already exist) and have him build it there.🤷🏼‍♂️

Sounds like you put more thought into this than the state did. When I seize power and become dictator, you'll head up the ministry of urban development.

No offense, but I moved from Chicago and nothing about this area is unique or worth preserving. Providence needs to modernize badly and people worried about brown sites next to an oil depot aren't going to be attracting outside investment and people.

Exactly, never seen a place where people thought a stuck burned out bridge was a cultural site.

Wealthy people have money, money gets spent on service industries like restaurants and result in a higher income tax base.

I’m just a dude on the internet, you should tell PPS they’re wrong, not me.

Of course the way the timeline has gone, the chances he has the investors to get it done at all are pretty slim.

Whatever legitimizes Providence has a big city is welcomed.

Agreed this is not going through either way. Just annoying how anti growth this area is.

Not sure how long you’ve been here, but the construction in the 195 lands for the last 4-5 years has been explosive.

We are not anti growth.

We did however sign onto this 195 relocation project with the clear provision this area would remain mid rises to keep in line with the existing mill/office structures - and not only did us citizens sign on to that, so did all the developers that have already built whose values will be negatively impacted.

You really can be both pro-growth, and have an expectation that the state live up to its promises.

Near the cic building in Providence. By the pedestrian bridge

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Now apply that logic to crime or pollution …

>”I'm getting tired of driving to Massachusetts to make a decent wage”

So move there …

Too expensive

TLDon’tR: “When rich people move into even more expensive apartments than they live in now, people who couldn’t afford their old apartments somehow immediately become richer and are magically able to replace those rich people in their old apartments”

Otherwise known as “high-school economics theory masquerading as actual analysis, while ignoring cities in which lots of luxury housing was built but where housing never got any cheaper” …

>” having lived in Boston and watched all the towers go up and housing costs continue to rise, it’s simply not factual.”

You’re not allowed to cite empirical evidence — such as actual Boston / San Francisco / Seattle / Austin / etc housing prices amidst the luxury apartment booms in those cities — when discussing housing on this sub, because doing so interferes with an absolute requirement that the high-school level economic analysis be based entirely on orthodox economic theory, rather than real-world outcomes that don’t substantiate that dogma.

None of these clowns ever references the actual outcomes of their theories in major U.S. cities, just a bunch of textbook boilerplate about what should happen, based on a faith-based belief system that is routinely disproven by actual housing prices in actual places. The Catholic Church has nothing on the canon of orthodox economics …

When pressed, their answer to why the things that they say must inevitably happen (but never actually do) due to more expensive condos being built is, “Well, prices would have been even higher otherwise” — but they never explain why prices didn’t actually decrease, as they haughtily claimed must happen as more high-end apartments are constructed.

This myopic insistence on deliberately ignoring actual housing prices while expounding on the theoretical results of building more luxury condos — as if it hadn’t already been disproven in the decade leading up to the global financial crisis, and again more recently prior to the pandemic — is so cartoonish that it would be funny if it weren’t denialism of Trumpian proportions …

It's owned by the Procaccianti company, the same one that demolished the police and fire building.

PPS is not anti growth. pay attention. They support tall buildings...in downtown and near 95, where community planning and professional planning efforts over the last few decades have said they should go, for a harmonious cityscape.

You probably don't like the way some steel cities have preserved their rusted out factories either, but those cities make a lot of hay with them.

Fane locked it and the adjacent parcel down just as things were starting to happen in the area. Since then, many things have been built and this parcel just sits there. Partially because of the fight about it, but also because it's not affordable. I predict we'll see Fane asking for another $25M from the state to help get it started. And costs will be cut in construction. It never was and still isn't feasible. If Fane had never proposed something so ludricrous, those two parcels would already be built out and we'd have some nice amenities for the park.