Press Releases

Providence, R.I. – October 1, 2004 – An early autumn afternoon sun streamed through the oversized windows of the Rising Sun Mills yesterday as a slew of laborers swarmed over one of Providence's more significant redevelopment projects.

Although it still looks more like a construction zone than a finished piece of work, the developers are holding an open house this weekend to attract tenants for their retro-industrial loft apartments.

City officials are expecting the $55-million residential/commmercial project at 166 Valley St. to help kick-start a renaissance in what is perhaps Providence's most depressed area, the Valley and Olneyville neighborhoods.

Pronouncing himself thrilled that residents are moving in, Mayor David N. Cicilline said in a statement that "the transformation of this historic mill... is a wonderful example of how this community is working together to create affordable housing, economic development opportunities and stronger neighborhoods in our city."

Built in 1887 to house one of America's largest textile mills -- the Saranac Mill and the National Worsted Mill -- the 10-building complex, comprising 313,000 square feet, sprawls across 15.75 acres along the Woonasquatucket River. As recently as the 1950s a millpond covered much of the area now occupied by Rising Sun's rear parking lot.

The complex takes its new name from the first mill on the site, Rising Sun, which disappeared long before the current buildings went up.

The new residential tenants will share their home with offices and retailers, such as a restaurant planned for the small former mill office that fronts on Valley Street.

Also on display this weekend will be that part of the complex set aside for the largest commercial tenant, Abaqus, a software engineering company that has outgrown its space in a rehabilitated mill in Pawtucket.

Approximately 125,000 square feet of commercial space will be available for lease in the complex, of which Abaqus has leased 70,000-plus square feet with an option for another 30,000. Another office tenant will be William Kite Architects, according to project partner B.J. Dupre, which would relocate from the East Side.

A grand opening cocktail party was to be held last night and the open house is scheduled for 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. tomorrow and Sunday.

Monthly rents range from $675 to $1,650 for the 136 planned residential units, of which 56 have been built or largely built in the first phase of development. Of those 56 units, 40 have been leased and 28 occupied, Dupre said.

They are being pitched as cool quarters -- not uniform in size -- with maple hardwood floors, painted pine ceiling beams, exposed original brick walls, some visible steel support columns and silvery ductwork slithering overhead. Most have 12-foot-high ceilings with 10-foot-high windows.

The units are proving attractive to professional people, a smattering of students and newcomers looking to mingle, Dupre said.

The rest of the 136 units, in the largest of the three residential buildings, won't be available until Jan. 1, Dupre said.

For a spot just across the river, the joint venture is designing 20 to 30 moderately priced townhouse condominiums to be built in a separate phase of the Rising Sun Mills project. The townhouses would be reached from Amherst Street in Olneyville.

Rising Sun Mills is the centerpiece of a joint venture of Armory Revival Co., of Providence, and Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse, of Baltimore, a nationally known specialist in urban redevelopment.

The joint venture plans a string of projects along Valley Street that it says will help to uplift the area, including the rehabilitation and conversion of another mill and a couple of commercial buildings.

Armory Revival and Struever Bros. also are acquiring houses that they expect to have renovated in cooperation with Olneyville Housing Corporation, one of Providence's small nonprofit neighborhood redevelopment enterprises.

Rising Sun Mills is a showcase for government subsidies, in the form of city property tax breaks and federal and state historical-rehabilitation tax credits. The project is also using a new federal tax credit under the New Markets program, which aims to stimulate job creation in commercial and mixed-use projects in depressed neighborhoods.

It is so costly to rehabilitate 19th- and early 20th century structures to 21st-century standards that developers and government officials say projects such as Rising Sun Mills won't happen without subsidies. Without subsidies, they say Providence's red-brick mills and other distinctive historical buildings will be lost to demolition and fire.

As a condition of the federal historical-rehabilitation tax credits, the residential units must be apartments. In five years, under the rules of the historical-rehabilitation program, the developers will be free to cash out much of their investment by selling them as condominiums.

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