The past, present and future of urban development in Newport in three snapshots
Saturday May 2, 10am-11:30am
Start at Brick Market Place and end at Gateway Center parking lot
Organized and led by Bart Lloyd
Bart is a retired attorney whose career as general counsel for a non-profit affordable housing developer (POAH) has included being involved in the redevelopment of neighborhoods in Chicago, New Bedford, Boston, and Washington, DC. He lives in the Point neighborhood, and is endlessly fascinated by the quilt of political, cultural and economic overlays that, over the passage of time, have made our community. He has been to Jane's Walks in Newport for the past two years - and decided he could 'free ride' no longer to this great community event. He is hoping attendees will be engaged and add their own insights to the discussion.
Urban redevelopment is the articulation of a shifting mixture of our cultural needs, wants, and ambitions; and its evolution over time presents great fodder for discussion of who we are and how we got here. This walk discussed three snapshots:
Past: The shops and condos at Brick Market Place were redeveloped in connection with the then new bridge and America's Cup Ave;, and with the heavy hand of federal policy in the '60's and '70's - but with surprising sensitivity to our local cultural assets and character.
Present: Bridge Street is currently adapting to the challenge of climate change (including, most pertinently, sea level rise), but also responding to a new willingness to accept denser development than the zoning restrictions of the previous 30 years.
Future: The Gateway Center (actually, more specifically, the parking lot at the Gateway Center) is one of the sites identified by Libra Planners (in their City commissioned report) as appropriate for new, denser development, and has been adopted into Newport's Comprehensive Plan for future high-density development. The Gateway Center (and adjoining Point Neighborhood) is a particularly appropriate place to pilot a geothermal micro-district - a possibility currently contemplated in pending bills in the RI legislature.
Walk Reflections
“Fascinating and eye-opening! I learned a lot about Newport's history and how it evolved into a tourist "Mecca" (I'm not from here originally), and the issues it is facing now. It was interesting listening to other wakers who contributed their knowledge and experiences.”
— Walk Participant
“Bart did an exceptional job of an informative, timely and interactive presentation of a very important historic neighborhood of Newport. His preparation and visual aids were impeccable.”
— Walk ParticipantBart met with our large group of around 30 people on Saturday morning outside Brick Marketplace. After a short introduction to the big ideas he was going to cover, he offered a history of all the development that had happened in that section of Newport over the last 150 years. He painted a picture of this more densely populated Newport and helped the group imagine all the ways we could change. He told us about the developments that could have come and the ways the community responded over time to various possibilities — senior housing, retail, hotels. There are always big decisions communities have to make around land use.
After about 45 minutes we walked down to the Point where we got to look closer at a neighborhood changing quickly because of both sea level rise and economic shifts. We talked about zoning restrictions limiting how homes that were once multi-family would have a hard time returning to that and the ways parking impedes livability.
Eventually we walked near the Gateway Center where Bart proposed that site as a place that could accommodate a large housing unit and we talked about the ways City Council and other City of Newport staff need to hear from constituents. The walk ended with people continuing to gather, swapping ideas and considering how we want Newport to be in the future.