New plans for rezoning waterfront

SOLD FOR SCRAPS: Promet Marine Service is now home to a scrap-metal yard after being purchased by an international scrap-metal recycler. / PBN PHOTO/FRANK MULLIN
SOLD FOR SCRAPS: Promet Marine Service is now home to a scrap-metal yard after being purchased by an international scrap-metal recycler. / PBN PHOTO/FRANK MULLIN

Sweeping visions of hotels, shops and restaurants lining Providence’s industrial waterfront appear dead following the sale of the Promet Marine Services ship-repair yard on Allens Avenue to an international scrap-metal recycler.
Pulling back from the broad rezoning plans pushed by past mayors to allow a wide range of commercial and residential uses along Allens Avenue, city officials now plan to release a scaled-back rezoning proposal that would add only office space to the waterfront mix.
“I think the energy [for rezoning] has left the room – people are much more concerned about what may or not happen” with land freed up by the rerouting of Interstate 195 through the city, said Providence City Councilor Luis Aponte, who represents Ward 10 and has supported waterfront rezoning. “I still think it should be part of the plan, although I don’t know how attractive it will be with scrap there.”
City Council President Michael Solomon, an opponent of earlier plans to remake the working waterfront with parks, condominiums and entertainment, said he expects a new plan with “minor” zoning changes to be released to the council in the next two weeks.
“I think right now everyone is in agreement there should be minor changes,” Solomon said. “There will probably be some office space involved. No condominiums, restaurants, shops or hotels.”
Spurring development on Allens Avenue, which is now home to a mix of marine industrial businesses, auto-repair yards and strip clubs, has been an objective in City Hall going back several mayors.
In the colorful renderings of “Providence 2020,” a plan commissioned by then-Mayor David N. Cicilline and released in 2005, the same blocks now home to the bankrupt Providence Piers and the new Sims Metal Management scrap yard were filled with throngs of visitors to waterfront parks, a riverwalk, hotels and residential towers.
But as they have in cities up and down the coast, efforts to trigger investment by easing waterfront zoning restrictions to allow a wide mix of uses, including shops, hotels, restaurants and residential development, have run into strong opposition from existing property owners who worry those uses will eventually squeeze out their businesses.
Unlike his predecessors, Mayor Angel Taveras has hailed Allens Avenue’s industrial sector and supports the plan scheduled to be introduced to the City Plan Commission Nov. 15 that would keep nearly the entire waterfront industrial. Office space would be allowed, but other proposed new uses, including live-work spaces, would not be allowed, said Providence Director of Future Planning Bonnie Nickerson.
“It is a working port and the mayor has been promoting it as an industrial area for high-paying, blue-collar jobs,” said Providence Economic Development Director James Bennett. “Every city needs to have a working port. We are using it as an asset. This asset doesn’t exist in Iowa or North Dakota.”
On top of the threats to blue-collar jobs that nonindustrial businesses could pose to the waterfront, Bennett said the cost of cleaning up some of the sites on Allens Avenue to allow nonindustrial use could be prohibitive.
Not only did the city support the sale of Promet to Sims Metal Management, the largest metal and electronics recycler in the world, Bennett said he was part of the negotiations that led Sims to absorb Promet’s repair services and keep them on-site with the export terminal.
“The city was very interested in not eliminating Promet as a company. It serves boats from throughout the Northeast,” Bennett said.
As for what the arrival of Sims’ metal terminal will mean for lingering hopes for a zoning change, Bennett acknowledged it “doesn’t promote it.”
The co-owners of Promet, David and Joel Cohen, have been at the forefront of the effort to keep the working waterfront industrial and have argued that, despite being underutilized for years, the area has great potential for growth.
“This is a validation of the argument the working waterfront has been making all these years,” Cohen said about the Promet sale. “This is the growth potential. All these properties have deep-water berths and this is where you can compete in the marketplace.”
According to documents filed with the Providence Recorder of Deeds, the Cohens received $16.78 million from Sims in exchange for their property at 242 Allens Ave.
“Our feeling is that once this gets rolling, it will really get rolling,” Cohen said about new industrial investment in the Allens Avenue waterfront. Under the sale, Sims also agreed to hire all 50 of Promet’s employees and will continue to run the ship-repair service on the property while using the deep-water pier and remainder of the site as the company’s primary export terminal for New England.
Next door to Promet, Providence Piers owner Patrick Conley has seen his plans to build a mixed-use, commercial project on the waterfront, which relied on rezoning, go up in smoke.
“They decided to sell to a willing buyer and basically, that sale has effectively scrapped the city’s plans for the development of the Allens Avenue waterfront along the lines of its very expensive Providence 2020,” Conley said about the Promet sale.
Conley said the only interested buyer in Providence Piers, which docks the only cruise ships that visit Providence, is a scrap-metal concern from Boston.
Sims competes in the metal-recycling business with Schnitzer Steel Industries, which has its own scrap-export facility at the Port of Providence.
Shortly before finalizing the Promet sale, Sims announced that it is building a new metal-processing center in Johnston.
Solomon said he understands that Sims is looking to expand its operation beyond the Promet site, but hasn’t gotten any specifics.
Daniel Strechay, a spokesman for Sims, declined to discuss any future development plans for the Promet site or other sites in Providence.
Despite the lack of momentum for waterfront rezoning now, the idea is unlikely to disappear completely as long as the city needs tax revenue and many lots on Allens Avenue appear underused.
Ward 1 Councilor Seth Yurdin, who was opposed to the city’s initial rezoning plan, said the popularity of Allens Avenue with the scrap-metal industry has raised concerns about environmental impacts and may warrant “tweaks” to the current zoning.
Aponte said the rezoning plan he favors would not allow residential use of Allens Avenue, but would make it possible for other nonindustrial, commercial uses, including hotels, offices and entertainment.
“My thought is that the city needs to expand its tax base as much as it can,” Aponte said. “As we looked at Allens Avenue and what has happened, there has been very little development because of the restrictions.” •

No posts to display

4 COMMENTS

  1. The lack of vision and the inability to accept change that has rocked so many other cities is astounding. Angel Tavares is not a man of vision or daring. What a waste of a waterfront. For old cities when the zoning was unknown and not a factor in their early development, many cities wasted valuable space on specialized and unsuitable businesses. Enlightened cities rectified those old mistakes, but Providence clings to them with some misguided notion that it has economic benefit. Maybe because I am a senior citizen, but I have heard for decades that the Providence waterfront was going to be revitalized and nothing has happened. To waste a potentially beautiful waterfront with oil storage tanks and scraps which not only take up plenty of space and pay minimal property taxes and provide only a small number of jobs. I do not understand the objection to condos. It’s not like Providence has many condos lining the waterfront. It has ZERO. The taxes they would pay should be attractive enough. But I guess Mayor No Vision Tavares wants strip clubs and dirty businesses.

  2. Richard, you’re tired, old and, to be honest, you have overstayed your welcome. Mr. Taveras (learn to spell his name, jerk) is, by far, the best mayor we’ve had yet. As is typical of your kind, you and your generation drove this state off the cliff and your kind still has the gaul to spit your comments on here as if anyone would take you seriously. As a Providence resident, I will continue to support our mayor and his correct vision on this matter. Fake condos no one will buy does not replace the blue collar jobs that exist there…period. End of discussion.

  3. When I was a youngster travelling over the Washington Bridge on family trips I will always remember the huge multiple piles of scrap metal that filled the area where India Point Park now sits. I surely hope that this is not the future view on the Providence River. Take a trip down to Baltimore – an aquarium, Hard Rock Cafe, Ravens football and Orioles baseball stadiums and many hotels, shops and restaurants fill their waterfront – along with many boat tour vendors. Why isn’t Providence moving in this direction? You have WaterFire and RI Shellfish – that’s a great beginning to commercial growth and tourism. Do you think that the investors in these type businesses will come forward when a scrap metal plant is their neighbor? Isn’t the city investing in a multi-million dollar visitor center bridge between So. Main and Eddy St.? Why bother – are the visitors going to have to view scrap metal plant and the noise and smells that go with it?