A Walgreen’s is almost certain to go up on the site of the former Sears Automotive store at the corner of Frost and North Main according to the city planner responsible for our neighborhood. But whether that’s a flash inthe pan or the first step toward a developed commercial area is not clear.
Last night 32 concerned neighbors filled Sandwich Hut on North Main Street for an evening meeting on that street’s development prospects. Lt. Schiavulli of District 8 Police Commander and city planner Bonnie Lloyd of Providence Planning and Development provided expertise. A very broad ranging discussion clarified what we do know and lot that we don’t know about North Main – including who owns what and why the Providence Rennaissance has bypassed that street. About 10 people took active assignments in one of three research groups:
1. Jon Howard and several others will call specific developers and retailers as well as Providence Economic Development to open a conversation about them, N.Main and what’s keeping them apart.
2. Michelle Tuck and her team will do a street inventory of all properties by owner and use.
3. Aaron Masri and his team will read Bonnie Lloyd’s draft design guide (which is also sort of a development plan… or idea… for No. Main) to see if it offers us the basic plan / vision from which to begin.
We meet again on April 27, with subgroups meeting the week before to get ready. I’ll post more details and links from last nights meeting by early next week.
4 Comments
atear · March 29, 2006 at 6:48 pm
There is a significant discussion on North Main at the Urban Planet website. Apparently Thom Deller is frequently contributing there as well.
http://http://www.urbanplanet.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=10990
atear · March 28, 2006 at 8:03 pm
The last I heard from the Mayor on this, he intended on redirecting the graffiti squad to focus on public buildings and schools. His rationale was that grafitti removal is like any other building maintenance issue – building owners wouldn’t call the City to paint their building or repair a broken window, so why should they expect removal of grafitti on City funds?
However, if the City is not going to take a role in remediation, it increases their responsibility to prevention. The mayor (and the police) have always raised their hand to claim this responsibility in public forums, but I don’t hear the same sort of “broken windows” strategy that NYC used to drive down serious crime by reducing vandalism. Whenever Providence police talk about where they place their patrols at night, it is obvious that they are redistributed to directly target serious crime, not to suppress “gateway” crime like vandalism.
Incidentally the parents at MLK Elementary have been calling the grafitti squad for months to remove the scads of spray paint on the exterior of the school, to little avail.
Connie Chesebrough · March 28, 2006 at 10:26 am
Call City Hall. The Providence Mayor’s office has a graffiti cleaning team. I think the business owner is expected to share the responsibility.
Emily Levine · March 23, 2006 at 11:30 am
I own a building on North Main Street.
I am concerned about all the graffitti on the buildings.Could someone contact me
to discuss this problem.
Thank you
Emily
K. Gottfried Inc.
351-8330
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