2025 Most Endangered Places
Collier Point Park is a privately owned 6-acre public park with waterfront access. Designed in 1996 by William Warner Architects, it is one of only a few coastal rights-of-way access points in South Providence. The private owners of the park, Lotus Infrastructure Partners — a private equity investment firm based in Greenwich, CT — closed it down for a few months in 2024 after it was reportedly vandalized.
Though it has since reopened, the closure highlighted the park’s precarious position as a privately owned public space (known as POPS in the planning world), which can suffer from restrictions on access, exclusionary surveillance/policing, and deferred maintenance. The firm that owns the park doesn’t need to be as transparent about its plans for the park as the City needs to be and is not beholden to community members. When the park closed down temporarily, Lotus did not alert the Washington Park Neighborhood Association and did not respond to our requests for comment about the closure or any future plans – because they don’t have to. The Plant Manager at the Manchester Street Power Station reported to PPS that he makes decisions about the park’s closure with city officials and Lotus Infrastructure leadership but he said he was not at liberty to give us the name of the staff at Lotus who make the final call.
Warner designed the small park in 1996 as part of his renovation of the Manchester Street Generating Station, on an adjoining parcel. He is generally recognized as one of Rhode Island’s most significant modern architects for projects including the Gordon School (1963) and Waterplace Park (1981-1994). He is also a key part of PPS’s own history as he led the 1959 College Hill development plan, which laid the groundwork for the College Hill Historic District. Warner received an Honor Award from the American Institute of Architects in 1965, a Presidential Design Achievement Award from Bill Clinton in 1997, and was inducted into the Rhode Island Hall of Fame in 2004 before his passing in 2012.
Collier Point Park is a significant Providence asset with potential to better serve South Providence and city-wide communities. Nearly 30 years after it first opened to the public, it may be time to renegotiate the terms of community “access,” providing community members with more say in its stewardship and its future.
Note: The small privately-owned plaza at One Financial Plaza managed by CBRE was also nominated this year due to the lack of maintenance on the Howard Ben Tré-designed fountain, which has been defunct for years (originally designed in 1998). The Boston Planning Department maintains a searchable partial map of the city’s POPS, while Cambridge’s Redevelopment Authority posts signs at many POPS to make public access and use policies more transparent.