Newport dead end seen as road to diversification

BACK ON THE ROAD: Land sought by Newport leaders to host the North End Innovation Hub, shown above in purple, includes space freed up by the removal of the elevated highway leading to the Pell Bridge and the former Newport Naval Hospital property. / COURTESY CITY OF NEWPORT
BACK ON THE ROAD: Land sought by Newport leaders to host the North End Innovation Hub, shown above in purple, includes space freed up by the removal of the elevated highway leading to the Pell Bridge and the former Newport Naval Hospital property. / COURTESY CITY OF NEWPORT

It’s known in Newport as the “road to nowhere.”
That’s been the legacy of a stub of highway extending off the Pell Bridge in the city’s North End. It’s where a planned Aquidneck Island expressway was abandoned decades ago, leaving a somewhat confusing mix of on and off ramps.
Now just a dead end, city planners hope the aborted highway and the land beneath it will eventually form a path to a new industry cluster capable of diversifying the island economy beyond defense and tourism.
Since March, grant-funded consultants commissioned by Newport have been working on a framework to build the “North End Innovation Hub,” the latest economic-development plan for that underutilized corner of the city.
By relocating the Pell Bridge approaches and adding surplus Naval Station Newport property, the city sees roughly 40 acres of publicly owned land that could be made available for developers to work with.
Master plans for redeveloping the North End date back at least to 1997, while designs to clean up the highway ramps go back even further.
What’s different this time around is the focus of the Innovation Hub, which Newport Economic Development Director Paul Carroll sees as a global center – “Kendall Square meets Davos” – for developing environmental technologies connected to climate change.
“We have a chance in Newport to be a beta test for how to live with the ocean,” Carroll said. “We are looking at integrative resiliency between the built and natural environment. Newport is an incredible place to test out how you live in a changing environment, a built-out urban center with the oldest sea-level, Colonial buildings in the country.”
Currently in its formative stages, it’s not the easiest development concept to get your head around and Carroll acknowledges there aren’t other cities of similar size to point to as examples.
The distinctiveness of the project is part of its appeal.
The Innovation Hub would revolve around an “anchor” organization which would hopefully then draw collaborators from the marine engineering and technology resources stretching from General Dynamics Electric Boat in Groton, Conn., and Quonset Business Park to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. Carroll said the city is not necessarily looking at universities to anchor the Hub and has identified two or three private investment groups, which he declined to name, that could be potential partners.
Along with marine technologies, cybersecurity research and medical institutions have also been mentioned as possible activities.
The first interconnected steps in the project are searching for those development partners interested in the land while working with state and federal transportation officials on the roadway realignment.
With $150,000 in grant money ($100,000 from the state and $50,000 from the Newport County Chamber of Commerce) the city last winter hired Colorado-based Matrix Design Group Inc. to work on both issues.
This week, the city and Matrix are holding three open houses for residents to view the “vision plan” for the Innovation Hub and provide feedback.
After that, hopefully by the end of October, the city intends to release a “Request For Expressions of Interest,” to solicit informal ideas for the area from potential partners.
Carroll said he hoped to get responses to the initial request by the end of November, which would then be used to refine a formal Request For Proposals that would go out in January for a March deadline.
At the same time, Matrix is working with the R.I. Department of Transportation and R.I. Turnpike and Bridge Authority on jump-starting the roadway realignment.
The current ramp configuration dates back to the opening of the Pell Bridge in 1969 and subsequent decision to scrap a planned Interstate-895 highway to Massachusetts.
The current design eliminates the Farewell Street ramp coming off the bridge, and the elevated highway to Route 138, instead directing traffic through a widened JT Connell Highway and a series of rotaries.
As with most transportation projects, securing funding for the realignment is a challenge. Mark Nemger, a planner with Matrix, said he has been working with RIDOT on a less-expensive design with fewer overpasses.
No development can take place without the road realignment and Nemger hopes some detailed responses from potential private partners will help spur the project along and give it direction. RIDOT did not immediately return calls for an update on where the road-realignment project stands.
In addition to land freed up by the roadway realignment, Newport also hopes to include the former Navy Hospital property on the waterfront, which it is trying to acquire from the federal government, in the Innovation Hub. That effort has been slowed by several issues, including a claim from the Narragansett Indian Tribe.
Nemger said all of the plans for the Innovation Hub remain extremely fluid, from the road design to the type of organizations that could be anchor partner, the kind of work done on-site and the physical bounds of the center.
So far the city is considering only publicly owned land, but adjacent private-property owners could be involved if interested. Early outlines do not exclude the possibility of workforce housing on-site.
In a show of support, the group hoping to expand Newport Grand has promised to contribute $1 million to the Innovation Hub, which Newport Grand would abut, if voters approve table games there.
Not far from the prospective Hub site on northern Broadway, the city is already working with the Rhode Island Economic Development Foundation on the Newport TechWorks Innovation business accelerator in the former Sheffield School building. The city was awarded a $1.6 million grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration toward building the accelerator.
With so many moving parts, the Innovation Hub is still more a concept than project and, like the redevelopment of Navy surplus land in Middletown and Portsmouth, could be many years away.
“It is hard to explain, because you are trying to bring together specialized skills in one incubator place and transfer jobs as [Department of Defense] downsizes,” said Newport County Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Jody Sullivan. “It is still a vision being kicked off with the Sheffield School and we hope with the land available we will be creating an opportunity for businesses to locate there and grow in technology and green areas.” •

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