Downtown’s “Ticking Time Bomb” - Is It Now the Turks Head Building?

Monday, October 10, 2022

GoLocalProv Business Team

 

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Turks Head Building and Superman Building POSTCARDS: Providence Public Library

In June of 2011, GoLocal wrote a feature article about the future of downtown Providence.

The crux was that if city and state leaders did not take action, the "Superman" building could go vacant, which would undermine the viability of downtown.

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That article, entitled “The Superman Building: Downtown’s Ticking Time Bomb,” sadly proved to be a prophecy.

“It’s a ticking time bomb if [Bank of America] moves out,” said former Mayor Joe Paolino at the time.

Bank of America abandoned the building less than two years after the GoLocal article, leaving it vacant, and it has remained so since — more than eight years later.

Fast forward to 2022.

Now, developer High Rock, who paid $33.2 million for the building in 2008 and received millions from Bank of America to settle litigation, is set to receive federal, state, and local subsidies and grants. 

Including the value of the tax stabilization and the federal and state tax credits, the underwriting of the development of the rehab of the Superman building is approximately $80 million.

And while the state is spending tens of millions to help "save Superman" after the loss of its signature tenant, Rhode Island is now incenting the signature tenant of an adjacent historical building to move out of the financial district.

 

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Superman Building vacant for 8 plus years PHOTO: GoLocal's Richard McCaffrey

State’s 195 Commission Offers Subsidies to BankRI to Leave Turks Head Building -- While Trying to Save Superman

Just kitty-corner across the street from the Superman Building is the historic Turks Head building, one of the state's most distinct and historically significant structures. When built in 1913, it was Providence's tallest building.

This past week, the state of Rhode Island took action that thrust the Turks Head into economic distress.

The 195 Commission offered BankRI and a development partner below-market rate land and tax stabilization to leave downtown and move to the 195 Commission land.

“We are incenting businesses to move out of one building to another area and giving the significant financial incentives funded by the taxpayer to move,” Paolino told GoLocal last week.

"It is the stupidest decision," he added.

He said he does not blame the bank. "They are making a business decision," said Paolino. BankRI is a subsidiary of Brookline Bancorp, Inc., located in Boston.

“The 195 land was intended to be used to attract life science companies, but instead, we are just moving business from fully taxed properties to properties that receive major subsidies and tax stabilization agreements,” said Paolino.

The owners of the Turks Head Building in downtown Providence also criticized the decision of the 195 Commission to award two high-value parcels to a Boston developer and BankRI.

“This decision will have a detrimental effect on downtown Providence, and on the Turks Head Building.  While we can’t dictate what private companies do, it is confusing why the State would enable such damaging consequences – without having a single discussion with or consideration for existing stakeholders in downtown,” said Waldorf Sultan GP, LLC in a statement.

The Turks Head building had lost a major tenant just prior to the pandemic -- a law firm that had moved across the city.

And, the building had lost another high-profile tenant, TD Ameritrade, when the brokerage firm was acquired in 2019 by Schwab.

 

 

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Turks Head under construction 1913 PHOTO: Providence Public Library

The History of Turks Head

Built by the Brown Land Co. -- an investment arm of the slave trade and Brown University family -- the Turks Head outstripped the Union Trust Co as Downtown’s tallest building, a distinction it held until the completion of the Biltmore Hotel.

It was the tallest office building until the then-Industrial National Bank Building was built -- now Superman. 

According to the Providence Preservation Society, New York architects, Howells & Stokes clearly had in mind Daniel Burnham’s Flatiron Building, located in New York City. That building was erected in 1902 at the intersection of Broadway and Fifth Avenue on Manhattan’s Madison Square, but the Turks Head is a shorter and simpler structure set on a wider angle than its New York model.

In the early nineteenth century, shopkeeper Jacob Whitman mounted a ship’s figurehead of an Ottoman above his establishment, “at the sign above the Turk’s Head,” and the intersection was known as such ever since. The figurehead reportedly disappeared in a storm, and the building, with its stone effigy of a Turk’s head above the third story, reunited image and name.

 

 

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Foundation of the Superman Building PHOTO: Save Superman

The History of the Superman Building

The building was designed by the firm of Walker & Gillette. On October 1st, 1928, the building opened to the public. After its completion, 111 Westminster withstood ever-changing economic climates.

By 1950, Theron Curtis, the bank’s Vice President, ordered the building's "eagles" removed.

He stated to a reporter from the Providence Journal, “They were something the architect wanted up there. Supposed to look like a flower pot or something. You couldn’t tell from the street. A crazy idea, in my opinion.”

The skyscraper was then home to one of the greatest business successes in Rhode Island history — the growth of Fleet Bank.

After Fleet had grown to the ninth largest bank in America, it was acquired by Bank of America (BoA). Over the next couple of years, BoA moved its operation out of the building and much of it out of Providence.

According to the "Save the Superman" website, “In 1982, Industrial Trust Company changed its name to Fleet Bank. The bank retained its headquarters in 111 Westminster Street until Fleet merged with Boston’s Shawmut Bank in 1995. At that point, the headquarters relocated to Boston and the company was renamed to Fleet Boston. In 1998, Fleet Boston was acquired by Bank of America.”

At 111 Westminster, Bank of America would remain its sole tenant until April 2013, when the bank relocated its branch to a smaller office nearby.

It has been shuttered and vacant ever since.

Now, the Turks Head building's fate similarly is uncertain. 

 

 

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