KentXie
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Developer to announce museum, hotel project in Providence
July 25, 2006
PROVIDENCE, R.I. --A Baltimore-based development company plans to transform a former power plant in the city into a museum and hotel as part of a $139 million project.
The Struever Bros. project calls for the old South Street Power Plant to house more than 130,000 square feet of office space, a restaurant, roof garden, 122 hotel rooms and the new Heritage Harbor Museum, which would be Rhode Island's first museum affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution.
The project, called Dynamo House at Providence Point, will also be eligible for $50 million in state and federal tax credits. It was to be unveiled Tuesday.
The affiliation with the Smithsonian would allow the museum to host the institute's traveling exhibits and would also give it access to the Smithsonian collection.
"We like the mission of the museum and we embrace the economic-development impact potential of having a world-class Smithsonian-affiliated history museum," said Bill Struever, president of the company.
"I think Rhode Island is one of the only states that doesn't have a state museum. That was a bell-ringer for us," he added.
The company bought the former electric plant for $1 million and plans to spend $15 million to renovate two floors for the museum, Struever said. It also plans to replicate six of the smokestacks that once stretched from the top of the building; the smokestacks will stand 120 feet.
The plant was built between 1912 and 1925 by the Narragansett Electric Co. The company donated the plant to the Heritage Harbor Museum in 1999 after it was decommissioned several years earlier.
"We love challenging old buildings and this certainly qualifies," he said.
July 25, 2006
PROVIDENCE, R.I. --A Baltimore-based development company plans to transform a former power plant in the city into a museum and hotel as part of a $139 million project.
The Struever Bros. project calls for the old South Street Power Plant to house more than 130,000 square feet of office space, a restaurant, roof garden, 122 hotel rooms and the new Heritage Harbor Museum, which would be Rhode Island's first museum affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution.
The project, called Dynamo House at Providence Point, will also be eligible for $50 million in state and federal tax credits. It was to be unveiled Tuesday.
The affiliation with the Smithsonian would allow the museum to host the institute's traveling exhibits and would also give it access to the Smithsonian collection.
"We like the mission of the museum and we embrace the economic-development impact potential of having a world-class Smithsonian-affiliated history museum," said Bill Struever, president of the company.
"I think Rhode Island is one of the only states that doesn't have a state museum. That was a bell-ringer for us," he added.
The company bought the former electric plant for $1 million and plans to spend $15 million to renovate two floors for the museum, Struever said. It also plans to replicate six of the smokestacks that once stretched from the top of the building; the smokestacks will stand 120 feet.
The plant was built between 1912 and 1925 by the Narragansett Electric Co. The company donated the plant to the Heritage Harbor Museum in 1999 after it was decommissioned several years earlier.
"We love challenging old buildings and this certainly qualifies," he said.
