(rshsdepot) Pawtucket-Central Falls, RI

["Bernie Wagenblast" <brwagenblast_@_comcast.net>]

From today's Providence Journal.

Bernie Wagenblast
Transportation Communications Newsletter
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/transport-communications/

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Competing Train Station Proposal to Get a Hearing

Jan. 26--PAWTUCKET -- The mayor is threatening to veto an ordinance that 
would pave the way for the demolition of the Pawtucket-Central Falls train 
station and the construction of a small shopping plaza on the property.
Mayor James E. Doyle said he would exercise his veto power if the City 
Council gives the ordinance second passage without hearing a competing 
proposal to preserve the train station and restore commuter rail service to 
the site.

But a veto may not be necessary.

City Council President Donald R. Grebien, who voted with four other council 
members last week to give first passage to the ordinance, said he will 
support a motion to table it when it comes up for second passage on Feb. 9.

The ordinance is controversial because it would allow the mother of a city 
councilor to sell the 90-year-old train station to a developer planning to 
demolish the building and build a strip mall.

The ordinance would do that by changing the zoning on part of the train 
station property from residential to commercial, one of the conditions of 
the sale.

Jean Vitali, mother of newly elected City Councilor Albert J. Vitali Jr., 
has an agreement to sell the train station to developer Oscar W. Seelbinder 
for $1.4 million.

Vitali recused himself from the deliberations when the council took up the 
proposed zoning change and didn't cast a vote.

Five other city councilors, including Grebien, who was elected council 
president after Vitali decided to support his candidacy, voted in favor of 
the zoning change. Grebien said yesterday he was still in favor of the 
change.

But people who watched or attended the council meeting where it received 
first passage got the wrong impression, he said, concluding that he and 
Councilors David P. Moran, David Clemente, Robert E. Carr and Paul J. 
Wildenhain were fast-tracking the station deal and giving the competing 
proposal short shrift.

Grebien said he hopes to correct that impression by voting to table the 
zoning change until the council has conducted a hearing on the competing 
proposal next month.

The competing proposal, which is being put forth by the Pawtucket 
Foundation, involves soliciting proposals for redeveloping the train station 
after acquiring the property by eminent domain.

The competing proposal is popular with preservationists and the city's 
burgeoning downtown arts community because it would preserve the Beaux Arts 
train station building and give priority to the restoration of commuter 
rail.

Seelbinder, a Memphis, Tenn., developer, plans to build a mall containing a 
pharmacy, clothing store and auto parts store on the train station property, 
then explore the possibility of restoring commuter rail service.

No trains have stopped at the station since the early 1970s, when the Penn 
Central Railroad went bankrupt and the station building was sold.

Moran and Carr (Clemente couldn't be reached for comment yesterday) said 
they would support Grebien's plan to table the zoning ordinance, in effect 
reversing the position they took at last week's council meeting, when 
speaker after speaker urged them to table the matter until the Pawtucket 
Foundation proposal was heard.

Wildenhain, the other council member who voted in favor of the zoning 
change, sounded surprised that there was a move afoot to table the 
ordinance.

"There is? Well, why didn't we table it the first time?" he asked over the 
telephone yesterday. "The logic behind that -- if there is any logic -- is 
to give the other people a chance to present their case."

But proponents of the Pawtucket Foundation plan had a chance, Wildenhain 
said. They testified at length about the plan at last week's public hearing, 
he said, and didn't persuade him. Wildenhain said he still believes that 
acquiring the train station by eminent domain would be the wrong strategy.

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The Railroad Station Historical Society maintains a database of existing
railroad structures at: http://www.rrshs.org

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