The architectural quirkiness and traditional character of the Wickenden streetscape continue to be threatened. Plans to raze the buildings at 269 (seen here) and the adjacent 249 Wickenden Street and replace them with yet another generic, cheesy-looking mixed-use box, passed a first hurdle Tuesday with the Providence City Plan Commission. Members of the Fox Point Neighborhood Association are calling the proposal “too dense, too tall, not climate friendly.” The loss of these two particular buildings, both built in the 1980s, would not be a great loss architecturally, were it not for the fact that we all know what will replace them, bringing the visual blight of Anytown Architecture to this charming neighborhood.
While voting to approve the master plan, the commission was not satisfied with the proposed height of the building. From the ProJo report:
The developer is Dustin Dezube, the subject of multiple Providence Journal reports for complaints by tenants about mold, prolonged maintenance issues and code violations.
. . . When Dezube comes back to the plan commission, he will need to show he has hidden the fifth story when viewed from the corner of Brook and Wickenden streets, and adhere to a setback at that corner of 10 feet, expanded from six feet.
With regards to the height, the project’s attorney argued that the Our Lady of the Rosary Church — the one way over on Traverse Street behind Adler’s — “is well above 80 feet.”
Talk about a Hail Mary.
*******************************************
Comparisons to church architecture are obvious.
From the Providence Architecture Co.
62 residential units/ 3 commercial/ 20 parking spaces.
Allowed number of stories: 4. Maximum height: 50′.
Proposed number of stories: 5. Proposed height: 64′ 5.5″.
Nothing could be worse than Pittsburgh where we have block after block of bland, neo-Soviet architecture.