Boutique shops build momentum

DESIGNING WOMEN: Noon Designs 
co-owners Maie Liis Webb, left, and Nora Alexander. The pair opened their downtown Providence store last month. / PBN PHOTO/NATALJA KENT
DESIGNING WOMEN: Noon Designs co-owners Maie Liis Webb, left, and Nora Alexander. The pair opened their downtown Providence store last month. / PBN PHOTO/NATALJA KENT

When Nora Alexander was a student at Rhode Island School of Design 10 years ago, the only things that routinely drew her and her classmates into downtown Providence were live music and “dive” bars.
Little did she know then that in 2012 she would open a handmade-jewelry and paper-goods shop on Weybosset Street that aims to give people another good reason to visit the heart of the city.
“We never went across the river – downtown could almost be a scary place,” Alexander said from Noon Design, the shop she opened with fellow RISD alum Maie Liis Webb at the end of September. “Now there are dorms and so many kids, boutiques and restaurants. It’s just a more inviting place.”
Noon, which has taken over the first two floors of the former home of Providence Optical at 75 Weybosset Street, is part of the latest round of downtown shops and restaurants to open, or getting ready to open, in the second half of this year.
They include a new artisan bakery, bar, wine bar, wood-oven restaurant, student gallery and art-supply shop, skateboard-apparel store and the latest outpost of the expanding Alex and Ani jewelry empire.
The downtown boutique retail scene has been growing for many years and appears to be picking up momentum again after weathering the recession and end of the historic-tax-credit program that helped fuel it in the previous decade.
With major residential-commercial redevelopment projects soon to be completed at the Arcade and former National Grid buildings, downtown boosters are preparing for more growth on the horizon.
“The interest in the whole district has grown in the last six months,” said Joanna Levitt, director of retail leasing and marketing at Cornish Associates, the developer responsible for transforming a large chunk of Westminster Street. “We have been on this trajectory, but it is now exponential. Every year it grows that much more. Washington Street is really coming around on the tail of Westminster.”
With all of its retail space leased on Westminster Street, Cornish this year has been focused on Washington Street and the new ground-floor retail spaces added to the refurbished Biltmore Garage.
So far the developer has signed two tenants for six new storefront units.
The first was Ellie’s Bakery, which will be run by the team at Gracie’s restaurant a few blocks away on Washington and will produce handmade bread and pastries. The second and most recent is Figidini, a wood-fired pizzeria and eatery where all dishes, from tapas-style grilled meats to, of course, pizza, will be cooked in an Italian wood-burning oven.
Figidini co-owner Frankie Cecchinelli, whose family has been in the wood-cooking pizza business for two generations, currently runs a Cape Cod-based catering business utilizing a mobile wood-burning oven.
“We originally wanted to open up in Boston, but it didn’t seem as accessible,” Cecchinelli said. “In the last two years, the transformation of Washington Street alone is amazing.”
Cecchinelli originally talked to Cornish about opening a juice bar, but when they heard about his background in pizza, they convinced him wood-fired was the way to go.
When Figidini opens, scheduled for December, it will add wood-fired pizza to a downtown dining mix that just added coal-fired pizza last spring at Providence Coal Fired Pizza on Westminster Street.
Levitt attributes the latest spurt of business openings to increased confidence in the economy and a growing desire among people to run a small business as residents decide to shop local.
“More people are interested in being small-business owners now and the population of Providence is supporting them in a more conscious way than they did before,” Levitt said.
In addition to rehabilitating and leasing old spaces, downtown property owners have built on efforts to make the area a destination through public events and entertainment.
Cornish uses their vacant Grant’s Block between Westminster and Weybosset as a concert venue, bocce court, outdoor movie theater and weekly food-truck base.
That effort built on the mini arts campus AS220 began starting on Empire Street in the 1980s and more recently expanded to Washington Street at the redeveloped Mercantile Block and Dreyfus building.
The opening of restaurant Viva Mexico and the new Clark the Locksmith space in the Mercantile were two of the notable new storefront openings last year.
Some of the common traits shared by many of the new downtown businesses is a focus on high-end, handmade products – food or merchandise – and a willingness to use small spaces.
After opening tapas bar Flan y Ajo in a 480-square-foot space on Westminster Street, co-owners Diego Luis Perez and Siobhan Maria Chavarria have secured a liquor license to open a wine bar in a 450-square-foot space on Union Street facing Grant’s Block. Perez said if he can get permitting issues straightened out, he could open by the end of October.
The wine bar, called Malasana, will feature high-quality wines unavailable in most bars, plus assorted cheeses and American charcuterie.
“When we opened the restaurant we were not looking at downtown, but the opportunity came up and it was the size we were looking for,” Perez said. “There are tons of people down here looking for things to do. We have more people coming in and out of the door than we know what to do with, so if we can send them somewhere else that would be great.”
One block northeast of Union, Cornish Associates architect Steve Durkee is planning to open a bar called The Eddy in a long-vacant space at 93 Eddy St. Levitt said it should open this winter.
Adding another shop to all the new food and drink spots on Westminster is Civil, a new branch of the skateboard and skate-apparel store of the same name in East Greenwich.
Civil co-owner Rob Asselin said he grew up skating in downtown Providence and, until recently, the city has always had skate shops. In both a personal and business sense the new store is filling a gap.
“Skateboard participation has declined in last 10 years, but on the flip side this area of town is up-and-coming,” Asselin said. “The area we picked is a strong area with a ton of traffic.”
At Noon Designs, Alexander, who grew up in Cranston, opened the first Noon store with Webb in San Diego after they graduated from RISD. The space they rented was initially intended as a workshop, but they discovered they could successfully sell what they were making there and customers enjoyed watching them make it.
After opening a second California store, Alexander said she thought about moving back to Rhode Island to be closer to family and began looking for spaces for an East Coast location.
Noon renovated both floors of the former optometrist’s office, made the second floor the work space where the jewelry and graphic design is done, and ground level the shop.
“We looked at Wickenden Street and Wayland Square, but fell in love with this space,” Alexander said. “San Diego was more of a beach and tourist clientele, but here it is people popping in for lunch.” •

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