Underutilized Armory landmark in line for repairs

When the West Broadway Neighborhood Association held its 30th Anniversary Gala at the Cranston Street Armory last fall, it was the first time many of the 1,100 attendees had ever stepped inside the yellow-brick battlements of a building known as the “people’s castle.”
A generation ago, the fortress-like 1907 building, with its soaring metal-arched drill hall and ornate copper crenelations, was familiar to many Rhode Islanders either in the National Guard or attending events such as track meets, car shows and political functions. Since the National Guard left the building in 1996, however, the Armory has become a quiet, lonely presence on Providence’s West Side, lending the surrounding neighborhood its image and name in real estate listings, but modest practical benefit.
The state is now evaluating bids from six contractors on a two-year Armory repair project funded by the Rhode Island Capital Plan Fund, targeted to secure the façade, fix masonry and damaged windows.
The bids range from $2.2 million to $3 million and the state is expected to pick one by the end of this month.
“It is this magnificent building, but now it is not being fully utilized,” said Kari Lang, executive director of the West Broadway Neighborhood Association. “Whenever people hear there’s something at the Armory, they jump at the opportunity to go inside. It has touched so many people’s lives in Rhode Island.”
As a candidate, Gov. Lincoln D. Chafee campaigned on better utilizing state-owned properties and pledged to renovate the Armory so it could host state departments now leasing office space from private landlords. Currently the state fire marshal, with offices in part of the first floor of the Armory, is the only full-time occupant.
But shortly after taking office, Chafee was informed that the cost of repairing and converting the facility into a modern office building was far higher than leasing the same amount of space. The plan to move more offices there hasn’t gone anywhere since.
“The build-out cost per square foot to put employees there is extremely high and cost prohibitive,” said Ronald Renaud, executive director of the R.I. Department of Administration. “Knowing what we have to do and what the market is, it will be an order of magnitude more to put offices there.” Renaud declined to provide the state’s exact estimate of how much an office conversion would cost for fear of dissuading potential private users, but said the work would include adding elevators, handicapped accessibility, new lighting, heating, electrical upgrades and flooring.
If it were cost-effective, the state could use more office space, Renaud said, with 95 percent of existing state-owned floor space occupied and facilities at the Pastore Center in Cranston and on Capitol Hill in Providence “maxed out.”
Chafee’s fiscal 2015 budget proposal includes $13.6 million to renovate the Virks Building at Pastore.
Of course, leaving the Armory mostly vacant and in its current condition is not without cost either.
The complex costs about $200,000 each year to maintain and operate – including phone, heat, water, security, landscaping, fire suppression, snow removal, trash collection and a janitor, Renaud said.
And tackling deferred maintenance projects stretching back decades, which included the replacement of the building’s slate roof, has cost an average of $1 million each year.
So if the Armory is expensive to renovate and expensive to leave the way it is, what can Rhode Island do with a national landmark that several years ago was added to a list of the 10-most-endangered historic buildings in the country?
Lang, who was on an Armory reuse committee in 1997, said she sees state offices as a good option for the old National Guard administrative spaces, with a function and event center, perhaps like Rhodes on the Pawtuxet in Cranston, in the massive drill hall.
When it is not booked for functions, the space cold host an arts market such as the Providence Flea, Lang said, or a wintertime extension of the Farm Fresh Rhode Island summer farmers market.
To defray the expense of renovations, Lang said a solar farm could be installed on the Armory’s ample roof.
“It could be the poster child for historic preservation and alternative energy,” Lang said.
Built by William Walker & Sons of Providence, the Cranston Street Amory is effectively three separate, connected structures – the drill hall and two towers – adding to the adaptive reuse challenge. The office towers, flanking the east and west ends of the complex, are each six- story walkups, with wood-railed staircases winding around sky-lit atriums.
In between the two towers is the 40,000 square-foot drill hall, which features a 70-foot, arched ceiling and an elevated tier of spectator seating attached to the wall.
Including the basement, the building has approximately 165,000 square feet of interior space.
Since the National Guard left, the Armory has been used by movie crews and in 2004 there was a proposal to repurpose it to hold the state archives. The archive plan died when voters turned down a bond referendum to pay for it.
Ward 13 Providence City Councilor Bryan Principe said even if converting the Armory into state offices is practical, he doesn’t see that as the best use for such a unique space.
“We need something that can impact the neighborhood and the economy,” Principe said.
Specifically, Principe sees the Armory, with its architectural details and period look, as a natural for an arts organization like the Dia Art Foundation in New York, which a decade ago converted an abandoned factory in the Hudson Valley into an exhibition space for large-scale works.
Alternatively, the Armory could host a museum, possibly as part of a larger mixed-use project similar to the failed Dynamo House plan that was to house the Heritage Harbor Museum, he said.
“Imagine what that would do to bolster Providence’s credentials as the creative capital,” Principe said of either an arts center or a museum branch on the Armory. “The city and state need to come together to land something like DIA or the Smithsonian, like they did with Newport for the America’s Cup.”
Eighteen years after having been given the Armory, the state appears eager to talk to any group interested in using the building, as long as they can take on the financial liability of maintaining it.
Renaud said he personally sees an art, theater or performance space the best fit for the Armory and a local college such as Brown University or Rhode Island School of Design the leading candidate.
“We are always looking for possible uses and listening,” Renaud said. “There are many folks who would like to use it but not own it and pay for it.” •

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