PROVIDENCE, R.I. — The real estate development company Carpionato Group is proposing to build a 459-unit apartment project at the site of the former Providence fruit and produce terminal on Harris Avenue, just west of Providence Place shopping mall.

“It’s big,” said Robert E. Azar, deputy director of planning and development. The development would outdo what is perhaps Providence’s most prominent and substantial private apartment project, the Regency Plaza complex downtown, which has 444 units.

It was nearly nine years ago that Carpionato Group, of Johnston, disgusted historical preservationists when it razed the terminal, which dated to 1929 and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places but had outlived its function.

In its heyday, the Art Moderne-style terminal was Rhode Island’s hub for the distribution of fresh fruit and vegetables, with product arriving on farmers’ trucks and by railcar overnight. The demolition led the city to adopt a public review process for the proposed removal of historical and otherwise significant structures.

The apartment project would go up as two buildings, each with its own parking structure, with a building on both sides of the Route 95 southbound exit ramp to the mall.

Shaped like an eel, the property runs west to east from Dean Street to the rear of the mall and is wedged between Harris Avenue and the Northeast Corridor railroad tracks. If built, the project would be highly visible to traffic on the Routes 6-10 Connector.

Harris Avenue intersects at an angle with the easternmost stretch of Kinsley Avenue, which now carries the vanity name Providence Place. In a two-part arrangement in 2008, the city swapped land with Carpionato with the understanding that the intersection will be reconfigured as a T. Carpionato gave up land that for many years was the site of the famed Silver Top Diner.

And the city sold a strip of Harris Avenue to Carpionato, in order to allow the developer to widen its site. The avenue would be reduced in width from 60 feet to 40 feet in the vicinity of the project.

“It certainly allows for better sight lines and slower speeds,” Azar said of a reconfigured intersection.

Tuesday, the City Plan Commission is scheduled to hold a public hearing of the proposal, which would have to be approved by the commission as a Major Land Development Project. The hearing is set for 4:45 p.m. in the Doorley Municipal Building, 444 Westminster St., downtown.

The commission will want to know about building footprint, height and massing; site layout, including how and where motor vehicles will come and go; the adequacy of parking; and zoning conformance, according to Azar.

A Carpionato Group executive did not return a telephone call seeking comment Monday.

Tentatively named One Hundred Harris at Providence Place, the project is compatible with the zoning of the site, Azar pointed out. It is a mixed-use district that allows residential, commercial or a light industrial use.

The five-story west building, including what plans appear to show as a bilevel parking garage, would be the smaller of the two buildings. It would contain 105 of the one- and two-bedroom apartments that are contemplated.

The east building would house 354 units in its seven stories, plus a six-level parking garage. All told, plans show 776 parking spaces, which would meet the city standard for a development of its scale.

The project would fit within the 90-foot limit for building height at that location, according to Azar.

When Carpionato Group acquired the property from the R.I. Department of Transportation in a transaction that was controversial for the purchase price, the company suggested that the site might work as an attraction in the mode of Quincy Market in Boston.

Later, after the teardown, Carpionato discussed the site’s potential for a hotel, offices and retail.

—gsmith@providencejournal.com

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