Lucie Searle + Sean Wallace

LUCIE SEARLE + SEAN WALLACE
Dynamic downtown development
While the settling of a flurry of high-end retailers on Westminster Street represents part of the ongoing evolution of downtown Providence, AS220’s Dreyfus Hotel project will help maintain the vibrant creative funk that has long provided a powerful attraction to the area.
 
Housed in an 1890-era hotel at the intersection of Washington and Mathewson streets, the Dreyfus, with 14 live-work spaces for artists (11 of which are affordable) and five work-only studios, will increase the number of creative types residing in what has become an increasingly high-rent district. But the Dreyfus, named for its former incarnation as a combination hotel and restaurant (the eatery had a companion location in Boston), is more than just a residential development.
 
AS220 will relocate its office to the Dreyfus from its location on Empire Street, thereby providing more space for the Broad Street Studio youth program. The new location will also include a print shop, a street-level gallery, a basement function room, and Local 121 at the Dreyfus, a restaurant focused on local food and drink (to be operated by Josh Miller of the nearby Trinity Brewhouse).
 
While the $7.5 million Dreyfus project couldn’t have been done without help from the City of Provi¬dence and from the private sector — assistance reflecting the kind of equity built by AS220 since its early days as an upstart — Lucie Searle and Sean Wallace played a major role in moving the project forward.
 
Both are AS220 stalwarts: Wallace, most recently, as managing director of the nonprofit art space, and Searle as its development director (she also hosts sumptuous home-cooked meals in her Mount Hope home for participants in the annual Action Speaks! discussion series). With their distinct skills, the two Rhode Island natives (Searle is from Exeter, Wallace from Portsmouth) have each found a satisfying calling through their work at AS220.
 
Wallace, 37, who has been on the staff of the arts organization for 13 years, learned of it while studying computer engineering at the University of Rhode Island, and continued to gravitate toward it after graduation. Searle, who declined to identify her age, spent time developing affordable housing in the Boston area before returning to the Ocean State, settling in Providence, 20 years ago.
 
As Wallace describes it, people have come to AS220 with ideas for different projects ever since it moved into its current Empire Street digs in 1994. Nothing really made sense until the Dreyfus, which, he says, will effectively double AS220’s institutional capacity.
 
The project was set in motion a few years back when Searle, Bert Crenca, AS220’s artistic director, were having lunch with Dan Baudouin, executive director of the Providence Foundation, who asked when the nonprofit was going to do another building. A series of talks ensued with John Bowen, the president of Johnson & Wales University, which owned the vacant Dreyfus property, and who served at the time as president of the Providence Foundation (whose mission is focused on promoting downtown).
 
With aid from the Providence Economic Development Partnership (a $780,000 acquisition loan) and Bank of America (which bought three types of tax credits for the effort and offered a $3.2 million construction bridge loan), the effort took flight. Other key participants included the architecture firm of Durkee Brown Viveiros Werenfels and general contractor Trac Builders.
 
A certificate of occupancy was obtained in March, about a year after construction began, and the Dreyfus will be ready for occupancy on May 1. The incoming residents include artists, musicians, and theater people.
 
Like any good team, Wallace and Searle can complete each other sentences and almost intuit the other’s thinking. Beyond the benefits for the Dreyfus residents and the surrounding community, the project has offered valuable experience that might aid the duo in future efforts.
 
Right now, though, the Dreyfus stands as a prime example of how the thoughtful reuse of an older building can bring more vitality to downtown Providence.
 
Searle, who grew up on a farm in Exeter, touts this kind of development as a broader example for the state. The way to preserve open space in rural areas, she says, is by having intelligent reuse and vibrant development in Rhode Island’s cities.

_Ian Donnis