Retail camaraderie part of plan for the Arcade

COZY QUARTERS: The first residents of 48 microlofts planned for the Arcade are expected to move in by the end of the year. / PBN PHOTO/TRACY JENKINS
COZY QUARTERS: The first residents of 48 microlofts planned for the Arcade are expected to move in by the end of the year. / PBN PHOTO/TRACY JENKINS

It’s been only a few weeks since the Arcade reopened in downtown Providence and already shopkeepers in the newly renovated 1828 landmark are developing a camaraderie unusual among mall tenants.
“We’re like the ‘Melrose Place’ of retail,” said Jessica Ricci, owner of Jessica Ricci Jewelers, referring to the 1990s television drama set in a California apartment complex. “We are a community. You couldn’t get more quality people and interaction. Every evening it’s ‘see you at [coffee and liquor bar New Harvest Coffee & Spirts].’ ”
The collaborative commerce at the Arcade is no coincidence.
During the 21-month transformation of the building, owner Evan Granoff looked to fill the first-floor retail segment of the project with like-minded and complementary businesses that would be greater than the sum of their parts.
“We were trying to create destination retail and draw on the strength of Providence, which is the education and arts infrastructure that is here,” Granoff said on a recent morning from the bar at New Harvest, the unofficial nerve center and social hub for the building thus far. “That is tied to the creative designers and we wanted to capitalize on that to make a destination people would drive an hour for.”
As an example of the retail synergies in the Arcade, Granoff made sure each of the three eateries planned for the building would be focused on breakfast, lunch and dinner respectively.
One of those eateries, the lunch-centric Livi’s Pockets, will offer delivery service through messengers at the already open Dash Bicycle Shop.
Although “new American” restaurant Rogue Island had yet to open, it’s dining room was made available last month for a fashion show hosted by clothing boutique Nude.
Granoff said the Arcade has been contacted by up to 300 retailers and restaurants, including some chains, but turned many away and decided to stick with locally owned shops.
“That was part of the process: finding retailers who would work together,” said Arcade spokeswoman Robin Dionne.
Perhaps by default in the past, the Arcade has historically featured small, local stores. Built at a time when space was at a premium and parking lots were not a concept, the building operates on a smaller and narrower scale than modern retail.
That was part of the reason the building went into a period of prolonged decline that culminated when Granoff evicted the remaining tenants and closed the building in 2008 to try to remake it.
A new roster of cooperative, design-oriented stores was one part of his solution, but the larger part was the conversion of second- and third-floor shops into tiny “microloft” apartments.
Yet while a mix of homes and shops in the Arcade made conceptual sense, it proved more complicated to pull off than Granoff expected.
When he announced redevelopment plans in January of 2012, Granoff initially targeted an aggressive renovation timeline that would have had the property reopen for business later that fall.
As it turned out, 2012 came and went as did another planned launch date in April of this year.
Finally at the end of October, the historic atrium opened to the public along with 11 of the planned 15 shops and restaurants. Granoff expected the two remaining restaurants and two stores to be open by early this month.
Exactly when residents will move into the first of 48 microlofts remains elusive.
Granoff said at least some residents should move in by the end of the year.
Looking back on how the past two years working on the Arcade compared to his expectations, Granoff said some aspects, such as marketing the building, turned out easier than he expected while others on the construction side turned out to be more complicated.
On why it took so long to finish the project, Granoff cited a host of complications, such as fire-safety codes, that come with combining homes and shops under one vaulted-glass roof.
The major pieces of the renovation went relatively quickly, he said, but getting all the details worked out for individual spaces, some of which were customized, proved time-consuming.
“Gross wiring and plumbing went quickly but finishing areas in detail took longer,” Granoff said. “I believed all of my timelines when I was saying them.” Despite the long timeline, Granoff disputes reports that the project’s cost had ballooned from a projected $7 million to $10 million. He said the work had cost “in excess of $7 million,” but would not say exactly how much more than the estimated cost.
One thing Granoff hasn’t needed to spend money on is marketing the apartments.
Through media attention and word of mouth, the Arcade has built up a waiting list for microlofts of more than 1,000 people. Aside from a handful of units that were reserved for retail tenants, the microlofts will be leased in the order people signed up for them.
Downstairs, shopkeepers are eagerly awaiting the microlofts and new restaurants to fill up and increase the currently-modest foot traffic.
“Traffic is decent, but it will get better once the construction is finished,” said Sophia Clap, employee at clothing shop Royal Male, which opened its third shop in the Arcade after two in Newport. “People have yet to discover us here and are mostly folks who know about us from Newport.”
Royal Male owners, the de La Vallette family, were so excited about the Arcade that they took advantage of the opportunity to rent a microloft.
Clap said the build-out of the Royal Male space was relatively fast.
Ricci, on the other hand, spent nearly six months personalizing her jewelry store with everything from custom floor patterns, to stenciling, shelving and lighting fixtures.
“I don’t know what I would have done if it had opened in April,” said Ricci, who moved to the Arcade from Hope Artiste Village in Pawtucket and makes jewelry in a mini-studio in the back of the shop.
A few doors down the hall at furniture-refinishing and home-goods store That Guy, owner Guy Lemoine decided to open a shop in the Arcade after his wife opened a second Luniac Glamour location that is now across the hall.
“I think once everything is in place, there will be a lot more people coming through and foot traffic,” said Lemoine, from East Greenwich, of the Arcade. •

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