PROVIDENCE – Cambridge, Mass.-based Chan Krieger Sieniewicz is expected to be named to lead the team that will study the economic and marketing feasibility of redevelopment scenarios when a section of Interstate 195 is removed from downtown Providence.

The firm’s experience with highway-removal projects and its work on the Capital Center Commission is being cited by the selection committee, made up of representatives of both the City of Providence and state government.

CKS beat out eight other firms for the $250,000 contract, which is to be funded by the R.I. Department of Transportation (DOT).

“CKS specifically brought a lot experience on similar projects – waterfront and urban,” said Saul Kaplan, a member of the selection committee and the executive director of the R.I. Economic Development Corporation, in an interview yesterday.

“They’ve worked on high-impact, game-changing development opportunities around the country.”

When I-195 is removed, it will clear 19.2 acres of developable land. In April, the EDC announced that it will work in cooperation with the DOT and the City of Providence to analyze the area’s potential. CKS Principal and Project Manager Patrick Tedesco said yesterday that his firm has worked on similar highway-removal studies in Louisville, Ky., Cincinnati and Akron, Ohio.

“This is not something we’re new at,” he said, adding, “I think that what we emphasized in our proposal was the importance of making this a study feasible for implementation. I think the goal really here is to try to have something that is informed by all the previous planning efforts that have gone into place.”

Co-founder and Principal Alex Krieger, who will lead the CKS team, served as an adviser to the Capital Center Commission between 1990 and 1998. The firm also worked on Rhode Island School of Design's Campus Master Plan. While those projects will create a base for going forward, a lot has changed in Providence, Tedesco said. Now a new Comprehensive Master Plan for the city is in the works, and the firm will study other planning efforts being made throughout the city, Tedesco said.

“We’re not going to be the first ones looking at this, clearly,” he said. “And we’re certainly aware of all the abutters and their interests. … But it’s really the public benefits that we’re going to be engaging in. We’re not going to be planning on behalf of one particular abutter.”

CKS will lead a team that includes staff from Jones Lang LaSalle, a financial and professional services firm with offices in Boston and Washington, D.C.; planning and code specialists from Code Studio, based in Austin, Texas; and the engineering firm of Fuss & O’Neill, which has an office in Providence.

According to the EDC, the study is to include information about expanding the city’s commercial tax base; increasing income, sales and corporate taxes; creating high-wage jobs; assuring development is aligned with zoning and land use regulations; creating pleasing connectivity and integration with the area’s parks; and the parcels’ relationship to surrounding districts.

Tedesco said the firm will keep in mind what Providence’s real estate market will support.

Kaplan yesterday emphasized EDC’s push toward a knowledge-based economy.

“There’s a strong economic development story here and we’re all aligned around a way to move forward,” he said. “What CKS will do is help us integrate all of the work that has gone on already and help us focus on the optimal way to move these parcels into the marketplace.”

Final contracts are now being drawn up and the plan should be completed by December, Kaplan said.

The R.I. Economic Development Corporation is a quasi-public agency established to promote business development, preservation and expansion in the state and undertake port projects in Rhode Island. Additional information is available at www.riedc.com.

Founded in 1984 and based in Cambridge, Mass., Chan Krieger Sieniewicz is a 35-member firm that offers a full range of design and planning services. It works primarily with public, educational and institutional clients. For additional information, including work samples, visit www.chankrieger.com.