PROVIDENCE, R.I. – This city’s remarkable revival and river uncovering is linked closely to its past.
In 1636, English clergyman Roger Williams, expelled from the colony of Massachusetts Bay, became a pioneer for religious freedom and established the first permanent settlement in Rhode Island – at Providence.
I’m not sure if the momentum of creative thought can be sustained for 370 years, but in Providence the people sure seem willing to take chances.
“You’re talking about a culture that is more daring,” said Kristen Adamo, a lifelong resident and spokeswoman for the city’s visitor’s bureau.
Over last weekend, 31 Fort Wayne government and business leaders visited the East Coast city to study river development, Providence’s shining example of its residents’ willingness to dream big.
Prior to its tag as a destination city, Providence was a dump. Its three downtown rivers were paved over with roads and train tracks, used only for moving waste. By the late 1970s, population had plummeted, and city leaders were compelled to adopt a drastic plan to physically relocate the train tracks and roadways.
Architectural visionary William Warner took that plan a step further in the early 1980s with his “River Relocation Project,” shifting the rivers and exposing them for commercial, housing and public-park development. All told, the undertaking cost about $170 million, mostly in federal highway funds, but it has meant an estimated $1 billion in spin-off investment.
To see the Providence images before and after transformation is like watching “Extreme Makeover,” with Providence getting liposuction, three root canals, plastic surgery and a new wardrobe.
It’s nearly unrecognizable.
Professor Fran Leazes from Rhode Island College, co-author of the book “Providence: The Renaissance City,” said getting so many levels of bureaucracy to agree to a project of that scope came down to “dogged determination and finding your allies.”
In Fort Wayne, the beautiful St. Marys River, generally the target for river development, needs only a facelift – and some bladder control. There is no denying that Fort Wayne’s rivers flood and flood frequently, which isn’t an issue in Providence.
At least so far, Fort Wayne’s government leaders and the private sector have not had the vision and temerity to take on river development. Here it seems we play defense against the river, rather than work with it.
And it’s tough to blame either side. For developers, slicing through the bureaucracy to place an ATM in a strip mall is arduous enough. Imagine a restaurant in the flood plain. On the other hand, local, state and federal land-use staff can’t give a green light to a riverside café they know could get washed away in a heavy rain.
City Councilman Tom Smith is one outspoken river-development advocate. He envisions restaurants and retail, perhaps where the Old Fort sits or along Lawton Park, as the city’s downtown blueprint suggests.
“Imagining it at nighttime,” Smith says. “what is so important is the way the light reflects off the water.”
The skeptics include Rod Renkenberger, executive director of the Maumee River Basin Commission. His career depends on expert knowledge of the rivers. So when he says building in the same spots where the city spent years buying flood-prone property doesn’t make sense, his point holds water.
Cindy LeMaster, president of the Historic South Wayne Neighborhood Association, suggested in a guest column for The News-Sentinel to leave the rivers alone because, among other reasons, “Our rivers should be left as a natural tribute to the Indians, pioneers and soldiers who lived and died there.”
That’s an emotional perspective and one Warner anticipated when I talked with him in the park he designed along the Providence River. “There is always going to be people that say, ‘Hey, status quo.’ ”
Al Moll, city parks director and former deputy mayor, who went to Providence and on a similar trip last year to Greenville, S.C., is at least keeping an open mind. “As many people I hear say you can’t develop on the riverfront, I hear as many say it can be done.”
Kathy Friend, chief financial officer for Fort Wayne Community Schools, who went on the Providence trip, is even more optimistic. “There are plenty of cities who have businesses on the river and have been engineered to handle the flooding, and I think we could do the same thing here.”
Leazes sums it up.
“The key is having people that are not afraid of change, who are bulldogs to make it work.”
Kind of like Roger Williams.
