The South Street Power Station. Photo by Marc Belanger/Wikimedia Commons
WPRO Newsroom
House lawmakers have submitted a joint resolution to turn the old “Dynamo House,” or South Street Power Station, into a new nursing education center.
Under the resolution, the space would be available for use by URI and Rhode Island College students in collaboration with Brown University’s Alpert Medical School.
The schools would collaborate with both the state and the city of Providence to enter into lease negotiations with Commonwealth Venture Properties, a private developer. The former South Street Power Station would be developed into a center that would house health and sciences education facilities, student housing, retail space and a new parking garage.
The project is estimated to cost $206 million and is expected to be financed through a combination of state and federal historic tax credits, private funding and public support. A long-term lease commitment from Brown for roughly half of the space, and from the state for the shared nursing center, will help the project to move forward.
According to a report, the project is expected to generate $248 million in economic activity, create more than 1,500 construction jobs and $90 million in employee compensation.
The resolution says the nursing education facility would be an “investment by the citizens of Rhode Island,” to offer educational opportunities for the residents of Providence and Rhode Island and create jobs.
The South Street Power Station, or “Dynamo House” as it has been coined, is a former Narragansett Electric/National Grid power plant. The plant was operational from 1912 through the early 1990’s, but has been vacant since 1999. The 60,000 square foot building shell sits on 1.76 acres of land.
