275-unit luxury apartment building proposed for Providence’s East Side waterfront

Seems like a good location, see map for details:
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I believe this area is hoped to one day be part of the Blackstone River Bikeway. There is a short off road bike section that now runs along the river from India Point Park and the East Bay Bike Path to Pittman Street a block south of this proposed development. North of here along the river there is much open space and it could eventually run through the Blackstone Park, Butler Hospital campus, Swan Point and Riverside Cemeteries, and Pawtucket public land holdings to Rte 95.

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Both sides of Seekonk River from Pawtucket to Providence and East Providence seem poised for future development. Pawtucket has the Tidewater Stadium under construction. Ground was broken on East Point in EP back in 2022 for a 300+ unit residential development (might be momentarily stalled). The new bridge and road redesign on the eastern bank should spur some of these projects in the coming years.

Churchill & Banks breaks ground on $120 million East Point waterfront community permitted for 392 residential units

East Providence, RI East Point is the latest waterfront residential community to be built by Churchill & Banks, permitted for 392 residential units, many of...
nerej.com nerej.com
 
Blame the shibboleth of Providence’s “housing crisis” for the possible approval of this turkey. The catchphrase has become almost meaningless–like blaming immigrants for all our ills, or playing the race card because no one will call you on it. While there may be a putative housing crisis in the city, it will not be solved by so-called luxury apartment buildings like 27 East River Street. The housing-crisis dog whistle, in this case, is merely a smokescreen to obscure the fact of a greedy and insensitive developer’s plan to pimp a bit of waterfront green space for his own profit. No one can seriously claim that this 244,000 gross-square-foot piece of junk will contribute to the commonwealth. East River Street is another salvo in the assault on the scale and desirability of the entire East Side.
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Man, I know people like this are arguing in bad faith but I'm taking the bait lol. One, trying to weaponize liberal sentimentality with this virtue nonsense. And two, perpetuating this garbage that we are to live by charity alone and that it is from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we should expect our dinner.
 
sean99090900 said:
Man, I know people like this are arguing in bad faith but I'm taking the bait lol. One, trying to weaponize liberal sentimentality with this virtue nonsense. And two, perpetuating this garbage that we are to live by charity alone and that it is from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we should expect our dinner.
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Will Morgan is so wildly out of touch with life in the real world that I usually read his pieces like they're articles in The Onion. And the paragraph you quoted is exactly the type of nonsensical diatribe that induces the chuckle/eye-roll combo I'm talking about.

But... I will say this. I begrudgingly agree that from an architecture and urban planning standpoint, this building is kind of a dud. It's oversized for the area, it's hardly elegant, and it doesn't exactly play nice as nice as it could with the waterfront. It's basically just a big ugly box. I'm still OK with the approval because it's A) adding more housing units, and B) utilizing a vacant/underutilized parcel. Both of those things outweigh the design flaws in my opinion, so I'll ultimately be happy if it gets built. But I will not pretend this is some beautiful (or even average) design. Because it's not.
 
Lrfox said:
Will Morgan is so wildly out of touch with life in the real world that I usually read his pieces like they're articles in The Onion. And the paragraph you quoted is exactly the type of nonsensical diatribe that induces the chuckle/eye-roll combo I'm talking about.

But... I will say this. I begrudgingly agree that from an architecture and urban planning standpoint, this building is kind of a dud. It's oversized for the area, it's hardly elegant, and it doesn't exactly play nice as nice as it could with the waterfront. It's basically just a big ugly box. I'm still OK with the approval because it's A) adding more housing units, and B) utilizing a vacant/underutilized parcel. Both of those things outweigh the design flaws in my opinion, so I'll ultimately be happy if it gets built. But I will not pretend this is some beautiful (or even average) design. Because it's not.
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Yeah, I don't think I've ever found this type of building particularly inspiring either to be fair to mr architecture critic. And yeah, I agree worrying about this stuff will become much more valid once the market comes a lot closer to an efficient quantity of housing.
 
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