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PawtucketPatriot t1_j32wwda wrote

I've lived in and around Providence most my adult life. I even recall going to the Arcade often with my mother, who used to work downtown. I recall going to a bakery, an Asian spice/herb/tea store, and a game store in late 80s/early 90s. There were a bunch of shops, not only on the first floor, but the two upper levels as well. It was eventually shut down, tenants kicked out, and rehabbed. After the rehab a few cool spots opened, some restaurants, and a bike shop. They added the microlofts to the upper floors. But it just doesn't have the same splendor or appeal it had before the latest rehab. The feel of a shopping center/mall is gone. There isn't the foot traffic it once had. However, the microlofts is a great alternative use. Would rather see something happen than having something historical sit empty or torn down.

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Kelruss t1_j32zs80 wrote

One problem is that it’s not really near anything interesting. Like, what reason would you have to take a shortcut from Weybosset to Westminster that can’t be solved by just cutting through parking lots.

You can envision a situation where Arcade Street is a public way with shops that pull people out of KP, through the Arcade, with the parking from Weybosset to Dyer replaced by green space, which would connect you to the parks by the river that would take you all the way down to the Van Leesten and the businesses on South Main, but it would take an incredible amount of energy and power to develop something like that.

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huron9000 t1_j386puf wrote

It’s smack dab in the middle of downtown. That should be the interesting enough- the street life, the commerce, the architecture. The architecture, at least is mostly still there…

The reason to cut through would be to buy and/or eat something from one of the small businesses that used to populate the Arcade.

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Kelruss t1_j39ak0e wrote

> It’s smack in the middle of downtown.

Geographically (maybe), but not socially. Like, it used to be the case that there were more people when it was surrounded by offices and right across from the Fleet/Bank of America offices. But almost all of the buildings around it have tons of vacancies, and it’s centered in a bunch of parking. It’s not a “place” so to speak, it’s just a building out of the way.

Like, if you think about how people flow Downtown, they don’t flow east along Exchange and Weybosset. They mostly flow southwest down Washington and Westminster, south towards PPAC, or north toward the mall and train station. With the CIC and the beer garden and the pedestrian bridge, that’s a new destination.

But the Arcade is just sort of tangential to all of these flows, just a little too out of the way to attract the foot traffic it needs to thrive. That’s not its fault, of course, it’s just the reality after years of Downtown being hollowed out.

It’s possible to imagine a future where it’s the focal point of a journey with some creative placemaking, but I don’t think that’s necessarily what a lot of its neighbors care about.

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