Mixed use is how this should have been from the start. There’s no good reason why the TJ’s couldnt have been built like that. Its this issue of “better than nothing I guess” that keeps creeping up. Commercial real estate will be good for Downtown Providence, especially the tax base, but the new BankRI HQ probably won’t do much for the state on the aggregate versus say a new corp for the state. The current HQ is already in Lincoln, and I use HQ loosely because they’re actually owned by a Boston-based umbrella corp.

A good strategy would have at least been getting these RI companies out of the more outlying suburbs and into downtown. Amica, Citizens, CVS, and Hasbro are major employers that don’t generate a lot of “spillovers” in their local area.