195 Providence Innovation & Design District

I'm pretty sure this twitter praise is for Chestnut St in the 195 District, I guess for parcels 28, 30 & 31
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I remember walking under that overpass to get to Leo's Restaurant on the right in the old red brick Irons & Russell Building that was feet from the cars on Rte 195. It was a pretty uninviting street scene back then. Furthermore, even the drive on the old Rte 195 was no picnic as the road had many curves in order to snake around the buildings downtown. It also had that horrible interchange with Rte 95 where the exit was on the left on Rte 95 South and the merge from Rte 195 to 95 entered on the left. Far better today on many fronts.

A drive along the old Rte 195:
 
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Arlington said:
I'm pretty sure this twitter praise is for Chestnut St in the 195 District, I guess for parcels 28, 30 & 31
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Massive upgrade. Theres still a million empty lots downtown so theres a really long way to go, but theres so much potential. Its pretty surprising how providence hasnt really been able to ride the coat tails of Boston and act as a relief valve for lab/housing pressures, but it seems like that may be changing soon. It seems like the momentum is building more and more with each new development.
 
stick n move said:
Massive upgrade. Theres still a million empty lots downtown so theres a really long way to go, but theres so much potential. Its pretty surprising how providence hasnt really been able to ride the coat tails of Boston and act as a relief valve for lab/housing pressures, but it seems like that may be changing soon. It seems like the momentum is building more and more with each new development.
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I think Providence has always been just too far for the vast majority of Boston workers. That's a rough 5 day/week commute. What's really changed is that there's been an explosion of remote work and hybrid work which makes Providence an option for people who might have otherwise ruled it out if they had to get to Boston every day.

I can speak from experience. We (my wife and I) love Providence, and have always liked the idea of living there. But our offices are in downtown Boston. So it wasn't an option when we were commuting. But now we're both hybrid with quite a bit of flexibility. So we've been looking at properties in PVD for a while and will very likely end up there. As the uncertainty wears off about whether or not hybrid/remote work is permanent, I think you'll see more people making similar decisions. We know a few already.
 
Living walking distance from Providence Station and working somewhere on the T in Boston/Cambridge is mainly doable, especially if you use the "express train" trick of taking Amtrak instead of the T. That difference turns a masochistic 2.5+ hour round-trip super-commute into one that's competitive in time and comfort with many intra-MA driving commutes.
 
MjolnirMan said:
Living walking distance from Providence Station and working somewhere on the T in Boston/Cambridge is mainly doable, especially if you use the "express train" trick of taking Amtrak instead of the T. That difference turns a masochistic 2.5+ hour round-trip super-commute into one that's competitive in time and comfort with many intra-MA driving commutes.
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Definitely. And Amtrak’s dynamic pricing often means fares are $5-10 each way on the sub 40 minute ride. I still wouldn’t love to do it daily (especially coming from Eastie where my commute is 15 minutes door to door), but that’s better than many MA commuter rail trips.
 
The Providence line of the MBTA Commuter Rail system will be the first to go electric. The necessary track infrastructure is already there for Amtrak. The MBTA's biggest investment will be for new electric engines. The introduction of this service should reduce the trip from Providence to Boston by a good ten minutes or more. That will make commuting between the two cities more popular.
 
Construction update on the Parcel 9 Phase 1 mixed-use, mixed-income family development in Providence, Rhode Island. This is next to the Holy Rosary Church across from Trader Joe's by the S Main Street off ramp from Rte 195 west. The project will transform the vacant 1-195 Redevelopment District parcel into a 127-unit community with 66 affordable and market-rate apartments, retail space, and an affordable childcare facility. The project will offer a mix of studio, one-, and two-bedroom apartments catering to residents with incomes ranging from 30% to 120% of the AMI. The first phase is set to open in September 2024.

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The renders for this one always looked weird/off to me. Glad for it but the windows or something make it feel like it should be next to a suburban mall maybe…
 
This Parcel 14/15 building looks like it will be 99% residential with a single small first floor retail space. The residential portion is almost exclusively a near equal mix of studio and one bedroom apartments. What are the target demographics for potential residents? It would seem it is very much geared toward very young under 30 years old adults. The high number of studio apartments may point to the targeting of students.



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#bancars said:
RI scrambing to keep Hasbro, to the point of floating an idea for a new HQ in the I-95 district:

www.bostonglobe.com

Could a sleek, waterfront headquarters near Brown and RISD keep Hasbro in Rhode Island? - The Boston Globe

If state leaders really want to prevent Hasbro from bolting for Boston in 18 months, they’re going to need to think about options outside of the toymaker’s current home in Pawtucket, according to Laurie White at the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce.
www.bostonglobe.com www.bostonglobe.com
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Worcester should propose an HQ just to take something else from Pawtucket at this point
 
I talked to a couple of people in the toy and ed-tech space, and their opinion is that Hasbro has been struggling to recruit talent in Pawtucket, and that their downtown Providence office hadn't helped with that - which is why they just closed it after 11 years in the space. Hasbro evidently started looking harder at Boston after the news that for the same reason Lego is coming from CT.

I suspect RI will see more headwinds - MA was recently aggressively courting Citizens Bank to move HQs, (they've recently expanded ops in Westwood and Medford, and their corporate HQ in downtown Providence is relatively small with their Johnston campus) and I'd expect Textron's HQ to also be vulnerable to poaching.
 
I doubt the prospects of a shiny new HQ are going to change their minds. A few years ago, there was an idea to tear down the Superman Building and build Hasbro a modern office tower in its place. (Rendering below.)

Many considerations go into talent recruitment and workforce retention besides mobility, but I have to imagine at least for the larger companies already in the Providence area, the incentive to "get poached" would be lessened if the city had frequent (half-hourly) regional rail connections to Boston. If access to talent is the main issue, then state leaders should focus more on enhancing access.

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Hasbro leaving Pawtucket would be another big blow to the city. It already lost 100+ year old Memorial Hospital after Care New England deliberately sabotaged the facility ( moved many procedures to its other local hospitals and then used falling patient numbers as justification. For closure). The loss of the PawSox who had been in the city for some 50 years then followed. The state of RI did little to help the city keep these entities and that may yet again be the case with Hasbro.
 
riptide said:
I doubt the prospects of a shiny new HQ are going to change their minds. A few years ago, there was an idea to tear down the Superman Building and build Hasbro a modern office tower in its place. (Rendering below.)

Many considerations go into talent recruitment and workforce retention besides mobility, but I have to imagine at least for the larger companies already in the Providence area, the incentive to "get poached" would be lessened if the city had frequent (half-hourly) regional rail connections to Boston. If access to talent is the main issue, then state leaders should focus more on enhancing access.

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Dovetailing with what I said the other day, WPRI quotes Providence Mayor Smiley’s thoughts on Capital Center being an attractive potential landing spot for a new Hasbro HQ, in addition to the I-195 land:

“But I also know that Capital Center, which is the area adjacent to the train station, is hard to beat in terms of connectivity,” Smiley said. “Train service to Boston, New York and to T.F. Green.”
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https://www.wpri.com/news/local-new...to-providence-mayor-smiley-says-its-possible/
 
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