Placemaking: Providence Waterfront
Information
This group builds on the outcomes of a Placemaking workshop held on January 21, 2009, to engage stakeholders in brainstorming ideas for the new public spaces being created along the Providence River by the relocation of Interstate 195.
Location: Providence, RI
Members: 8
Latest Activity: Sep 25
Themes from the January 21st Placemaking Workshop
1. There is a strong, largely intuitive, underlying sense that what are deeply desired in the city are destinations that address the values of Providence, and the needs of particular neighborhoods. Great places and destinations are what define a city, and they will help Providence become more competitive in attracting the “creative class” and a “knowledge economy.”
2. There was a clear message that the waterfront spaces being created, including the pedestrian bridge, need to become a major year-round destination for the city. They should be places of economic activity that generate revenue to support maintenance and programming. Towards this end, every group at the workshop identified income generating activities that would ensure a high level of use and maintenance, encouraging people to return again and again. Specifically, many identified a desire for a beer garden, restaurants or food service, and elements of a public market. Uses should be triangulated, or clustered together, to create a critical mass of activity, and revenue.
3. There seemed to be agreement that calling the new spaces “parks” was too defining and that a series of “public spaces” was more appropriate. This change in semantics also lends itself to a revision of who would conventionally be accountable for the success of these public spaces. The Parks Department cannot be solely responsible for their management. The Greater Kennedy Plaza Working Group, which represents a host of public, private and non-profit organizations, is a model for engaging new partners in creating a vibrant destination. These public spaces also need names that reflect their future character and resonate with the citizens of Providence. Initial ideas include: Ship Street Landing, Iway Place, Eddy’s Point Park, Ember Bridge, and Providence Point.
4. The new pedestrian bridge needs to become a destination unto itself, not just an iconic structure or a means for moving between places. In addition to comfortable amenities, weather protection, logical access points, wonderful lighting design, and an appealing aesthetic, activities are necessary to make the bridge a draw for both residents and visitors. Potential activities that were identified include art vendors, fishing, boating, bicycle rentals, group tours, and a “beer garden” restaurant. It was also suggested that part of the bridge should be intended for bicycles, joggers and fast walkers in conjunction with many places to linger (i.e., kiss). Formally serving as the “home” of WaterFire would immediately contribute to a unique identity for the bridge.
5. The new public spaces need to be implemented in stages in order to flexibly serve a community undergoing significant changes. As Project for Public Spaces claims, “You cannot know what you are going to end up with.” What is important is that the infrastructure is planned now to allow for growth and evolution. A recreation center, for example, may not fit within the initial project budget but could attract future funding and management partners; its potential location and any structural requirements should be considered upfront. Water supply and electricity requirements should also be carefully examined and installed as part of the initial construction.
6. In the interim, many of the activities within these public spaces may be temporary. For instance, a temporary swimming pool, an urban beach, and temporary retail stalls were identified as programming features that could be accommodated as provisional arrangements that could be replaced by more permanent structures as the neighborhood develops and the spaces build a constituency of supporters.
7. Even over the long term, there seemed to be an emerging theme of active recreation in flexible spaces for the public spaces on both sides of the river, such as basketball, interactive play features, dance classes, volleyball, skating, boating, jogging, tai chi, and bocce.
8. There was widespread concern at the workshop that wide streets and incompatible edge uses would isolate these new public spaces, limiting their potential success and minimizing benefits on the surrounding communities. The proposed cross sections of Eddy, Dyer, South Water and South Main Streets were of particular concern. The Dynamo House parking lot that is proposed adjacent to the western space was also undesirable, and coordination efforts with National Grid must be undertaken to prevent this situation.
9. Workshop attendees agreed that transit, walking and biking need to be the primary means of reaching this waterfront destination and the way to integrate the public spaces into surrounding areas. A streetcar that serves the Jewelry District/Old Harbor neighborhood would also serve to spur new development, as has been experienced in many places throughout the country, including the Pearl District in Portland, Oregon. In Portland, a local university and an expanding hospital contributed to the capital cost of the streetcar line because it reduced their need to construct expensive structured parking. For the Providence project, convenient transit, pedestrian and bicycle access will reduce the number of off-street parking spaces required within walking distance of the new waterfront destinations.
10. Creation of this destination begins a larger effort to re-establish Providence as a major waterfront city and would spawn other water-related activity up and down the river. The water could be animated with a proliferation of floating docks, expansion of the existing gondola service, boat tours, dinner cruises, small boat rentals, and even vendors selling goods directly from their boats. Like other waterfront cities—Stockholm, Stravanger, Oslo—creative strategies need to be employed to ensure that use extends beyond the summer months: hot drinks, blankets, heat lamps, tent structures and programming strategies like “Happy December” in Slovenia.
11. This effort also begins a city-wide effort to identify and create a system of destinations in the downtown and the region using the “Power of Ten” framework. How these destinations connect to one another—“reach out like an octopus”—is essential to their collective greatness. The new waterfront spaces in particular should extend to the heart of the Jewelry District via the proposed “Urban Pathway,” to downtown and Kennedy Plaza through an engaging and pedestrian-oriented Dorrance Street, and to the south via the Point Street Bridge and a greenway connection that safely and comfortable traverses Wickenden Street.
The ideas above should serve as the foundation for an ongoing conversation around creating a great destination on the Providence River. These overarching themes, in conjunction with the specific recommendations from the workshop, will also form the basis of PPS’s programming and management recommendations for the new series of public spaces.
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Comment by Priti Patel on April 21, 2009 at 5:26pm -
The PPS Providence Waterfront Report is now available for download at the following web address:
http://www.pps.org/pdf/PPS_Providence_Waterfront_Report.pdf
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Comment by Priti Patel on February 11, 2009 at 2:26pm
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The following comment was submitted by Seth H. Handy -Chace Ruttenberg & Freedman LLP
1) Many many planning processes going on (City planning process, Old Harbor Plan - Prov Fdn & Jewelry District Assoc, 195 relocation planning, PPS planning for India Point Park . . .) & not enough sense of continuity & applying results of one to the next. Ultimately City will be largely responsible for coordinating it all in their comprehensive plan but they're stretched thin in planning throughout City. Need another entity to pull results together to ensure continuity & convey unifying messages clearly to City to ensure traction.
2) Easier to plan than to execute & practicalities need to be taken into consideration soon or else they'll limit ability to achieve visions. For parks, one big execution issue is maintenance and programming & much of that comes down to money. Government has little money so who's going to step up & commit to taking on practicalities? We have enough planning/visioning now to assemble stakeholders & begin working through tough questions re how to execute. That should get under way soon to ensure that there's some reality underlying the “best laid plans.”
3) Connections seem critically important, especially given your stated goals of defining a City by destinations, triangulation & "Power of 10." I have been engaged in many of the other planning processes & think it a pity for any not to account for larger scope of public spaces throughout the City (or at least those contiguous to the river park system). Based on your write-up on this process, glaring omission is connection to India Point Park which provides the best public waterfront space in the City, by far, although it's severely under-programmed and under-utilized. To fulfill Providence's potential as a destination, that Park has to be a central part of destination planning. So, how does the planning for India Point Park connect to this thinking on creating the public spaces that make Providence a destination? There's a real opportunity to create one of the 10 destinations in the park at the former Shooters property which is now owned by the State (as part of the condemnation related to the 195 relocation) but will soon be put out to bid to highest bidder, presumably for private residential development – to help fund remaining highway improvements and produce tax revenue. The budget constraints are real at both the State and City levels, but this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to seriously enhance the network of public spaces in Providence. This comes back to importance of execution – while all the planning goes on, the tough decisions re practical opportunities for fulfillment (intermodal water transit hub, public marketplace, expanded community boating???. . .) need to be undertaken so results will be realized.
4) Another connection issue is whether there will be a public transit hub in the vicinity of the planned park on the west side of the river & what it will look like. Seems like a big opportunity to enliven that area, connect, etc. The planning process has discussed transit planning in general ways but someone should be sure specifics are addressed so that planning can take shape collaboratively around transit (as it should).
5) Some have repeatedly raised the idea of putting a museum (modern art?) in the new park on the west side of the river, as part of a larger effort to bring life & create a true museum district (Children’s Museum, Heritage Harbor, RISD. . .). I think that would be a great way to enliven the park, ensure programming & create destination in Providence but don’t believe there’s any follow-up planning, investigation or execution.
6) I like the active thinking re programming the new pedestrian bridge.
That’s a start. . .
Seth
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Comment by Priti Patel on February 5, 2009 at 3:19pm
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The following comment was submitted by Greg Gerritt - Prosperity For RI
I was unable to attend the session, but wish to comment on one of the points.
There is a strong, largely intuitive, underlying sense that what are deeply desired in the city are destinations that address the values of Providence, and the needs of particular neighborhoods. Great places and destinations are what define a city, and they will help Providence become more competitive in attracting the “creative class” and a “knowledge economy.”
I have a great deal of trouble with this section. First, the “knowledge economy” and the “creative class” are some of the key elements in creating the current economic crash. The FIRE industries (Finance, Insurance, Real Estate) are the critical players in destroying the affordability of housing in RI, and in creating the funny money bubble economy that crashed. Why would we want to bring them to our city???
A second component of the knowledge economy is the medical industrial complex. There is a fundamental contradiction, a dilemma of the first order in that if we use the medical industrial complex as our engine of economic growth, and between 30 and 40% of all economic growth in the US over the last 20 years can be directly attributed to the medical industrial complex, then what happens is that it becomes more and more difficult to have affordable healthcare for all. So growing the economy via the medical industrial complex means more and more uninsured people and people who can not afford medical care.
The efforts to attract the creative class and knowledge economy are also directly in opposition to the relocalization of the economy that is driven by ecological collapse and the responses to ecological collapse that our community needs to take.
Finally one must consider how much of this agenda is designed to displace the poor. Ass the community of last resort, the place where folks go when they have no where else to go, do we really want a community based on driving the poor out?
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Comment by Priti Patel on February 5, 2009 at 1:57pm
- Project for Public Spaces is currently preparing a report, summarizing the outcomes of the workshop, which will include a conceptual programming diagram. A link to the report will be posted to this website in the coming weeks.
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Comment by Priti Patel on February 5, 2009 at 1:32pm
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The following comment was submitted by Charles Meyers:
I like the name of the "crossway" for the pedestrian bridge over the providence river.
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Comment by margherita pryor on February 4, 2009 at 4:49pm - I was unable to attend the workshop but am intensely interested in the results. Were there any renderings produced by the group, and could they be posted? I'm also curious about the participation of the city's planning department. The waterfront and Fox Pt charettes have suggested similar strategies in the past, but they do not seem to be incorporated in the city's thinking.
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