Another recent industrial rehabilitation, this time with more felicitous outcome. This thirteen-building complex of mostly two- to five-story buildings housed worsted production from 1867 (in a mill destroyed by fire in the 1880s and substantially replaced by this group) until the 1950s. The typically more elaborately detailed mansard-roof office at the complex’s front stands at what was once the center of the ten-building compound, now bereft of three large buildings to the north and west. But the vigor of the pier-and-spandrel construction and the exceptionally large windows seen in the buildings that remain can go a long way toward conveying the impressive presence this mill had at the height of its activity. For the second half of the twentieth century, light-industrial and retail activity occupied the buildings. In 2002, the Providence-based Armory Revival Company joined forces with Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse, Inc. to redevelop the complex into moderate market-rate loft apartments, combined with commercial and light industrial use, the most ambitious program to date for industrial rehabilitation. The re-use will also include site improvements toward the rear to take advantage of the lock on the Woonasquatucket River, a waterway already undergoing reclamation from two centuries of industrial abuse when this project began.
– 2003 Providence Guide to Architecture
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