NEW: 6-Story Hotel Proposed for College Hill, 3 Houses to Be Torn Down in Plan

NEW: 6-Story Hotel Proposed for College Hill, 3 Houses to Be Torn Down in Plan

A proposal has been introduced by Smart Hotels LLC, a Shaker Heights, Ohio company to build a 6 story hotel with 130 rooms. 

The proposed hotel will be located at the corner of Angell and Brook Streets -- in one of the busiest areas of Providence’s East Side.

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The company targets affluent college areas.

Three houses to be torn down as part of this hotel project, including 209, 211 and 217 Angell Street. The three properties are controlled by East Side developer and realtor Ed Bishop. The grandest of the three homes is the 1890 structure at 209 which is accessed by the City of Providence for $922,500. The three structures combined are assessed at a  value in excess of over $2 million. 

The project is described by Smart Hotels as, "This project consists of the demolition of existing structures and merging of 3 lots of land to co~struct a single new 6-story, 130 guestroom hotel. The first floor of the hotel will house the hotel lobby, lounge and other hotel amenities as well as a restaurant, while the upper 5 stories contains 130 guestrooms. A lower level basement will be accessed via Fones Alley and will provide 40 valet parking spaces as well as other hotel support spaces. Four additional valet surface

parking spaces are at grade accessed off Angell Street. Aesthetically the hotel design responds to the neighboring East Side character and will be clad in a cream-colored brick and light gray panel, accented with darker gray trim. A Porte Cochere anchors the entrance of the hotel and large expanses of glazing activates the space inside at both Brook and Angell streets."

The company is seeking a variance, "The Applicant seeks relief from the Zoning Ordinance's on-site parking requirements. The proposed site plan does not permit adequate space to meet the parking requirements under Section 1402(A)( 1) the Zoning Ordinance. Additionally, we note that the ordinance requires more parking spaces than the use will actually require."

The company’s first public review of the project will be at the College Hill Neighborhood Association Meeting scheduled for Monday.

“CHNA is looking forward to reviewing the proposal from the developer and hearing feedback from the community at our meeting on Monday, Oct 7 at 7 pm at Lippitt House Museum at 199 Hope Street. Some things we will be looking at include the scale, height, design and materials of the new construction, the houses proposed for demolition, and the potential impact on traffic, congestion and parking," said Josh Eisen, President of CHNA.

According to a 2018 Wall Street Journal article, “Smart Hotels, founded in 2009, takes a slightly different approach to the nine hotels it develops, owns or manages—with its partners—on eight campuses.”

Since that article, the company is pushing to build in a number of cities including Providence and Chapel Hill - home of the University of North Carolina.

Smart’s President Ed Small told the Wall Street Journal that Smart Hotels preferred sites that are generally top-ranked universities, either public or private, and that have healthy graduate schools and centralized campuses.

“We were looking at a niche in the market, as these places really did not have hotels that were representative of the institutions they were serving,” Small said.

"SMART Hotels LLC develops and operates campus hotels with signature style and environmentally-sound solutions," says the company's website.

This was first reported 10/3/19 12:22 PM