Goodbye Green, Hello Asphalt: The Death of Metacomet Golf Club–Architecture Critic Morgan
Saturday, July 31, 2021
Does East Providence have a death wish? The City Council's approval of development plans for the 138-acre Metacomet Gold Club to be destroyed for a shopping center with apartments, offices, and restaurants has to rank as one of the biggest planning blunders since the city allowed itself to be cut in half by Interstate 195 in the 1960s.
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Providence skyline and harbor from the bike path near former Metacomet Golf Club. PHOTO: Will Morgan
Marshall Properties, the Pawtucket-based developers of low-end shopping plazas, apartments, and storage facilities, claims to offer "confident, creative solutions," as well as a "commitment to creating great real estate aesthetically" (apparently without architects). Their specialty seems to be massive blocks of office space, such as 950 Warren Avenue and 375 Wampanoag Trail (both in East Providence and both displacing 72,000 square feet), as well as the view spoiling 75,000 square feet Storage Center Providence at the Thurber's Avenue exit on I-95.
For Metacomet, Marshall has promised to redevelop the 120-year old golf course "into an exciting first-class mixed-use property … that will bolster commerce and community." If you believe that, then I have a bridge to sell you. In short, the future of this green space will look like any other New England woodland, park, or farm that was lost in favor of a run-of-the-mill shopping center–something as dreary as Route 6 in Seekonk or Bald Hill Road in Warwick.
Metacomet Golf Club clubhouse. Scotland’s Alan Ross, one of the great golf course designers of the century, laid out the course here in the 1920s.
East Providence is poised on the cusp of real change. It is the likeliest "next desirable place," a logical overflow destination for families and businesses now that the East Side is becoming overbuilt and overpriced. As outlined in a recent GoLocal story (https://www.golocalprov.com/business/east-providence-is-the-future-architecture-critic-will-morgan), the Townies have much going for them in terms a great location on the Seekonk River and Narragansett Bay. But they have to be wise about how they capitalize on those assets.
Destroying a magnificent waterside green space for anything less than a singularly brilliant scheme would send the very worst message. As Curt Spalding, former executive director of Save The Bay, noted, "Keeping the entire site as open space serves as an insurance policy against climate change." Candy Seel, of the grassroots opposition group Keep Metacomet Green, decries the increased traffic, loss of wildlife habitat, and the "complete destruction of the quality of life surrounding the country club."
Keep Metacomet Green is a grassroots organization of several thousand members opposed to the destruction of the golf course. PHOTO: Will Morgan
A green Metacomet landscape is an integral part of Veterans Parkway, the jewel in the crown of East Providence's fabulous bayside setting. This emerald necklace meanderingly follows the East Bay shore with unparalleled views of downtown Providence and the harbor. From the old city heart at Watchemoket, Veterans–a parkway in the truest sense of the meaning– gracefully winds south for over two miles, offering a remarkable combination of bike path, maritime, and skyline prospects, as well as appealing, small scale residential streets (The area is still a real estate bargain.).
Chip away at this little by little and soon the city will lose it greatest natural endowment. Marshall's current plan is for a million-square-foot mix of retail, residential, office space, and assisted living. Set against this, the developer’s pledge of keeping thirty acres of open spaces seems nothing less than a sellout.
Even if some open land survives, we can get a likely idea of how Marshall's scheme will appear by looking at Kettle Point just down the road.
Kettle Point touts its location, as well as its "classic New England Seaside style, which refers only to its semi-detached town homes. Most of project is comprised of 4-story blocks that look like any new suburban development in Austin, Raleigh, or Kansas City. Kettle Point is also home to the humongous University Orthopedics, which arguably occupies the finest promontory in the Upper Bay. This might not stand out along the New Jersey Turnpike, but who really believed that this environmentally insensitive bully would be life-enriching for Riverside?
What small group benefits from the asphalting over of Metacomet's function as the lungs of the city, not to mention its natural beauty and history? In 2021, cities do not give up green space: they conserve it and try to acquire more. As State Representative Gregg Amore declared, "Years from now, I would be filled with remorse and regret if I did not try to offer a plan to preserve this special place for future generations of Townies." Alas, the same old forces of the quick buck over the public good will mean the loss of a treasure that would make East Providence even more desirable.
Architecture critic Morgan is the author of American Country Churches and The Almighty Wall: The Architecture of Henry Vaughan. He has taught at Princeton, Louisville, and Roger Williams.
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