July 30 // Mom & Pops threatened by closure for delinquent sales tax

Not too surprising, the City and State and trying to get tough with businesses that are late on their taxes. As a business, I am late, and currently on a payment plan with the IRS as well as the state for 2007 taxes. In this economy, if you don’t plan right, you could get caught holding the ball as bills come due. The fact that the state is unwilling to negotiate with these businesses – arguably the hardest hit – and get them onto a payment plan is outrageous, and plainly a bully tactic. But to what end? If the state loses all these 1200 mom and pop businesses, then the state loses its soul, and its attraction to tourists who came to see places like the Liberty Elm, recently being filmed for a Food Network spot. Tourists don’t come to RI for our Dunkin’ Donuts or Subway sandwich shops, they come here for Flo’s Clam Shack, Aunt Carrie’s, or the Modern Diner (not to say that anyone of these mentioned are under threat of closure. But there are about 1200 small businesses that are). Read the full Projo story here.

April 16, 2009 // New Bridge through Pawtucket

The next few years are going to be hell for Pawtucket, as if it wasn’t bad enough. If you think the traffic now when you hit the border with MA was bad – or when you are about to leave RI – wait another year for the DOT to begin construction on a few new lanes of highway. Apparently, the School Street exit will become two new lanes, and will serve as the overflow lane while they demolish the old bridge and construct the new one. The DOT says it will take the next four years to complete the project. Yikes.

Most Pawtucketeers hope that at the end of all this, the City will at least have a new bridge that actually feels like a bridge. After the first few rounds of design were the typical DOT design, local business leaders stepped up and put pressure on the DOT to come up with something better. We think, with a few small caveats, that we did get something much much better from them, both when being driven over and also from surrounding angles. The big problem we had with the design was that it didn’t feel like a bridge at all, it was an invisible overpass. No one got the sense that they were passing over the Blackstone River, one of the hardest working rivers of the 20th Century.

So, what do you think? Here is the DOT site: www.dot.ri.gov/engineering/construction/projects/Bridge550/ and here is the Greater City Providence page about the new plans.

January 25, 2009 // A blast from the Recent Past

Only 8 years ago, RI was slightly on the map with a big Super Tuesday election. Comedy Central took on the comparisons... California, Rhode Island, and New York. Steve Carell in Cali, Mo Rocca in NYC, and the fabulous Steven Colbert in RI. Watch for shout-outs to Haven Brothers, Buddy, and the Broadway Gulf Station (briefly). Click here to watch.

September 27 // Time to talk some more

There’s been quite a bit of redevelopment activity going on in town these past few months, and we haven’t covered any of it. Its tough to keep up when this is supposed to be only a hobby. We have had our ear to the ground, however, and so, here are some things that have been on our mind:

• Brown University: Interesting tidbit= The University owns 234 properties, 104 of which are homes (most of them historic in some way). There is a good list of all of them on Wikipedia.
• Brown University: They have been B-U-S-Y. Brown’s master plan has been reworked and reworked. Their plans for what they call “The Walk” have been coming to fruitition. It’s a green path along the end of Brown Street, between Angell and Waterman. There are plans to do more work – a lot more work – between Angell, Brown, Waterman and Thayer Streets. Three houses on Angell Street are threatened by demolition or removal: 127 Angell, 129 Angell, and 135. 129 Angell Street is also the Lucien Sharpe Carriage House, which was recently Brown’s Urban Environmental Laboratory (1884). These three properties ended up on PPS’s 10 Most Endangered List this year (click here for the Wiki). Problem is, preservationists will be forced to play catch-up with the University’s actions unless they are more forthright with their master plans in the future. And it’s not just preservationists... Brown seems to think that they have carte blanche to do what they will on College Hill. Sure, they have their students and their faculty in mind. That’s great. But they don’t seem to remember that there are other people who live in the city, too. In fact, we have heard third-hand complaints from Brown faculty wondering why residents of College Hill won’t just let Brown take over Waterman Street and use it as a student thoroughfare. This kind of attitude – not malicious, more like they are living in the bubble of Brown – can’t persist if Brown and the residents of College Hill, and the rest of the City, are going to live with Brown’s inevitable expansion.
• Irish Parlimentarians: Who would have thought that lil ole RI would play host to a bunch of Parlimentarians from Ireland who want to study preservation and economic development in New England cities? Well, on October 7th, 2008, a group of them will visit the City and meet with local officials and local poreservationists to get their take on ways to revive sea-faring mill cities while preserving their character. Let’s hope that the things this city did right will work in Ireland, and they avoid some of the pitfalls that we ran in to along the way.
• Vista Della Torre: The Providence Zoning board approved (unanimously) a variance for a 250 foot building at the corner of Broadway and Service Road 7. For reference, the nearby senior-high-rise, Dominican Manor, is only 175 feet tall. The city Planning Department seems to think that the perimeter of downtown, and the edge of the residentail West Side, is ripe for high rise development. I guess they will get their way. Fortunately, the nearby street will not be abandoned as previously discussed, but it looks as thoughthe building was granted air rights to build over the street in some way. For more info, check the Urban Planet page.

More info will come as I have the time, so you know, like in a few months...