From the Providence Journal Metro Section
Bridging Olneyville's past and future
BY KAREN A. DAVIS | 01:00 AM EDT on Wednesday, October 5, 2005
It was no secret that, when it came to the subject of development, the Olneyville neighborhood had for years been marked as undesirable.
Its old mill buildings were too costly to renovate.
The housing stock had deteriorated, and many longtime residents had sought better dwellings in the suburbs or in other areas of the city.
But the neighborhood was not abandoned. Over the years, it became a haven for immigrants, workingclass families and artists, who eked out a living in the buildings off Valley Street or Manton Avenue and lived there. They rallied behind talk of reviving the community parks and cleaning up the Woonasquatucket River.
In recent years, however, the neighborhood that for so long had been bypassed by development suddenly seems to have to become a magnet for it.
It is against that backdrop that a small grass-roots organization called Puente was born.
"Puente started as a response to . . . all the development starting to happen in the neighborhood," said Sara Stuever, spokeswoman for the group and a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design. "There hadn't been a lot of investment in Olneyville, [and] we wanted to be proactive in involving the community" in the development that did occur.
Puente, which takes its name from the Spanish word for bridge, is a real-estate and economic-development organization that encourages financial self-sufficiency. The group's mission also includes creating opportunities to reuse or rehabilitate structures as affordable house or something else of value in areas where residents are facing gentrification and displacement.
The seeds of the organization were planted in 2002 when artists, preservationists, residents and elected officials were engaged in discussions about the building of Eagle Square, which would have leveled the mill buildings at Atwells Avenue and Eagle Street, to make room for a grocery store, a shopping center and office space.
A coalition opposed to the razing of the historic buildings lobbied officials and persuaded developers that the project should be revised, to save four of the buildings and devise a project more amenable to the needs of the community.
Among those who submitted ideas to save the buildings was William Struever, a Brown University graduate and Baltimore-based developer who has been recognized nationally for his large-scale, community-based urban-development projects.
While he was being recruited to get involved with the Rising Sun development of residential and office space down the street from Eagle Square, his daughter, Sara Streuver, was meeting with artists and residents to discuss how they could buck the trend of gentrification.
"Sara was in an interesting position," said Carolyn Mark, executive director of Puente.
Besides having friends who had been displaced by development, she also had friends, living in mill building on Oak Street, who were given 24-hour eviction notices and left without homes when the building was condemned in January 2004.
About 60 people, most of them artists, were forced out of the building, which city officials determined had numerous fire-code violations. The incident drew attention to the fact that artists were among those who could not find affordable places to live.
"I was there," Struever said of the activists and artists who rejected any development that displaced them and did not give them a say in the matter. "Having been involved in the neighborhood, all of that [history] definitely informed my thinking."
She and others resolved to get the community involved.
They founded Puente, began working with and talking with agencies, and joined with her father's company, Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse Inc., to develop a mill building at Valley and Delaine streets.
Mark said that Puente, which was incorporated in 2003, immediately began working with residents, artists, architects and engineers to create a project that would be for the community.
Noting that mill buildings have historically housed small business and light manufacturing, the project – dubbed The Plant – will also seek to attract small business owners.
The Plant aims to create 29 live-work spaces for artists, at below-market costs, and 26,500 square feet of commercial space, for tenants who will provide community services.
One of the tenants will be a community kitchen incubator, which will allow caterers access to commercial kitchen space in which to make their businesses grow. That project is being developed in conjunction with Olneyville HousingCorporation.
The development, which is expected to be completed next summer, will include event space for fundraisers, conferences and gallery shows.
The former mill building where The Plant is being developed, at 60 Valley St., is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, but it had been vacant for years and had been the site of several fires.
In the spirit of involving all stakeholders in the development of The Plant, Puente recently held a design competition to determine what should be done with the smokestack that towers over the property.
At the groundbreaking last month, city officials praised the effort as one that will brighten the entire neighborhood.
Bill Struever joined others in praising his daughter for having the vision and persistence to push for the project, which is unique because it drew on input from throughout the community.
"Our hope is that this will be a model," Mark said.
She said that Puente plans to be active in hiring residents from the community, in all stages of the development. And, she said, it will be particularly active in seeking minority- and women-owned contractors for the project.
Sara Struever emphasizes that Puente is not a short-term organization. The group has an office in a former furniture store where former customers still drop by, in search of mattresses.
The same building that houses Puente – next door to The Plant development – also houses the Sol Art Gallery, a youth arts organization and a bicycle repair shop.
Carolyn Mark and Sara Struever said their organization has experienced a groundswell of support from residents, artists and business owners.
The need for such community-oriented development projects is "not insignificant," Mark said.
"It's important to have a [development] process be as reflective of the neighborhood as possible," Struever said. "We wanted to have a successful process, not just a successful product."
