Businesses Claim They Are Being Pushed Out by Brown for New Dorms
GoLocalProv News Team
Businesses Claim They Are Being Pushed Out by Brown for New Dorms
Now, he says Brown tells him he cannot move his business into the new building.
“For years they said there will be new construction. They said don’t worry, that we could come back,” said David Faria, who owns the East Side Mini-Mart on Brook Street, which will be demolished this fall for the student housing.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST“I believe they intended for that to be the case — then something happened about three weeks ago, and they said I’m sorry, we need more space,” said Faria.
In early April, Brown announced its revised its plans for the new two-building residence hall near the southern end of its College Hill campus after criticism by neighbors. The newly revamped project will shift from a 400 student residential project down to 350.
“I’m surprised and disappointed,” said Faria of learning of his fate. “It leaves us without a store. We’ve been here 30 years and have very loyal customers.”
Faria said he was given verbal assurances by someone he had been dealing with "in the university's real estate division."
“We thought, OK, we’ll be out the duration of the construction — we were looking forward to the new building. Now we were told this,” said Faria.
Faria said that the popular Bagel Gourmet located next door to him in the commercial strip had the same understanding, but are now out of a new space post-demolition as well.
“We thought we’d have a lot more people, we thought it would be fantastic,” said Faria, of the new dorms. “[Bagel Gourmet] is very popular, they’re a money-making machine. I talked with [the owner] just recently about this, and discussed the situation — I guess Brown had other plans.”
“I’d like to stay around the East Side, but I now I'll have to find new space,” Faria added.
Brown Responds
While Faria stood by his assertion of what he said transpired, Brown said that nothing was ever promised.
“That is false,” said Brown University spokesperson Brian Clark. “We have communicated with commercial tenants since the early stages of Brown's planning process and were clear that there was no guarantee of space for retailers in the new residential complex.”
“At this point, the initially envisioned retail space has been eliminated,” Clark added. “That decision came in direct response to addressing community concerns about building scale and the transition from the neighborhood to the residence hall site -- we detailed our revised plan early this month and have met with multiple community groups since. But there had been no tenant determined for that space, nor any promises made, so that change does not impact our commercial tenants."
The impending demolition of the East Side Mini-Mart comes after another convenience store -- Store 24 -- on Thayer Street was demolished to make way for a mixed-use building -- of which Brown currently is a tenant -- that includes a Shake Shack.
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Latest for Dorms — and Neighborhood
As GoLocal reported:
The dorms are on the fast track.
The University expects construction to begin in October 2021. The target timeline for project completion and building occupancy is Fall 2023.
In June 2020, the project included buildings of 80,000 and 50,000 square feet, respectively, on the west and east sides of Brook Street between Charlesfield and Power streets.
In revising the plan, Brown claims it has addressed concerns about building scale, the transition from the neighborhood to the residence hall site, overlap with the Providence Historic District and a planned retail space. Brown says the revised plan will:
- reduce the above-ground footprint and overall scale of the western building by 16,000 square feet, and include step-downs from five to three stories on both buildings, in response to local concerns about the Power Street streetscape;
- increase the setback distance between Power Street and the western building’s southern side, moving the structure outside of the Providence Historic District’s boundary line to enable new green space;
- add publicly accessible green spaces at the southern end of both buildings (at the two northern corners of the Brook and Power street intersection), creating transitions from the surrounding community to the residence hall site that complement the neighborhood’s character;
- and eliminate a planned retail space in the western building, addressing concerns from neighbors about new commercial activity and the potential for associated pedestrian and vehicle traffic.
Editor's Note: A prior version had that Brown owns the building at 249 Thayer; it has been corrected to state Brown is a tenant.
Updated: Monday 11:10 AM