Has R.I.'s $2.3M orphan found a purpose?

WARWICK, R.I. — Six years after the Rhode Island Department of Transportation spent $2.3 million for a vacant printing plant to renovate as a materials-testing laboratory, the building still sits empty.

Now the state’s Emergency Management Agency is planning to move its headquarters to that former United Printing building instead, after federal officials who had funded the 2012 purchase grew "impatient" that the plant was still vacant.

The two agencies began talks nearly a year ago, after officials from the Federal Highway Administration wanted to know why the 52,000-square-foot building remained unoccupied, with the materials lab still housed in the basement of the DOT’s headquarters on Smith Street in Providence.

The DOT calls that space "undersized, inefficient and antiquated."

The EMA’s purchase and renovation of the building would solve a problem for both agencies: it would take the DOT off the hook from having to reimburse the Federal Highway Administration for millions of dollars because Director Peter Alviti put a planned move of its materials lab on hold when he arrived in 2015. Alviti said the $14-million price tag for renovation was too high.

It would also give the EMA much-needed space in a non-military setting: emergency management now shares quarters with the Rhode Island National Guard on New London Avenue in Cranston, with strict security and a requirement that visitors pass through a checkpoint to get to the EMA building.

Meanwhile, the DOT is still trying to figure out what do with its materials lab, and whether to take a portion of the 6.5-acre Colorado Avenue parcel and build a new laboratory across the parking lot from a renovated EMA headquarters.

"We’re trying to right-size our facility and (EMA) is trying to right-size (its) needs, and we’re trying to see where all of the pieces to the puzzle will fit," Alviti told The Hummel Report last week. "We’re hopeful we can get the money that we need to put that plan in place so that EMA can occupy most — if not all — of Colorado Avenue and that we could build some inexpensive building adjacent to it, that is, a prefab metal building that would serve our purposes."

Alviti said he envisions a new testing lab costing anywhere from $5 million to $9 million. The money would have to come out of the DOT’s budget.

Cost is what drove Alviti’s decision to scrap plans to renovate the Colorado Avenue property, off Jefferson Boulevard, for a new materials testing lab, shortly after he took over as director in early 2015. The previous administration, under Director Michael Lewis, bought the property in 2012 in part because it is next to a DOT maintenance facility.

The Federal Highway Administration was on board with the concept, footing the $2.3-million price tag. The DOT planned to use 30,000 square feet for laboratory space; the rest of the building would house 40 staff members and accommodate a training center for 50.

Alviti said an original renovation estimate of $4.5 million that ballooned to $14 million made it an easy decision to put the project on hold while the department developed a plan to repair the state’s highways and crumbling bridges, a program eventually dubbed Rhode Works.

Why did the Colorado Avenue building renovation cost increase so dramatically? Alviti said he didn’t know — and didn’t care. His focus at the time was bridge and road repair.

There is no question the DOT needs to find a new location for the materials testing laboratory. For decades it has been in the basement of the department’s headquarters on Smith Street, across from the State House, with office space (including Alviti’s office) on the upper floors.

A sign over the main entrance says "RI Department Division of Public Works" — put up before the agency was renamed the RI Department of Transportation in the 1970s.

Over the years, employees on the upper floors have complained about noise and fumes from below as materials such as asphalt, concrete, soil and paint have been brought in from projects across the state for federally mandated testing. Huge pieces of equipment periodically pound concrete to test its strength.

Alviti said the department has tried to outsource some of the testing — or conduct it in-house on weekends — but the location is still problematic.

The Federal Highway Administration enthusiastically endorsed a plan to move from Providence to Warwick in 2012, but three years after Alviti shifted gears, officials began asking questions about their stalled multimillion-dollar investment.

"They’ve been very patient with us; they now are beginning to get a little bit impatient, in that they’d like to see us bring that facility to fruition with the initial investment we made it in," Alviti said. "And we’d like to, too. We’d just like to do it at the right time, and I think now is the right time and at the right price and at the right size.

"We’re not looking to build the Taj Mahal here, but we’re looking to build on a laboratory that will provide the services that we need — no more, no less."

Several details still need to be worked out. EMA Director Peter Gaynor said he is confident he can cobble together the estimated $15 million it will take to renovate and move into the old printing plant at 55 Colorado Ave. EMA’s costs include paying back the federal highway agency part of the original purchase price of the building six years ago.

"We’ve been quietly working on it, but I think it’s going to go a little bit faster now because we have a designer on board, we put out a (Request for Proposal), and we’re going to get cracking here shortly," said Gaynor, adding that the agency could be in its newly renovated space next year.

The building at 55 Colorado Ave. is mammoth, with several offices at the front entrance and the rest divided into three large floor spaces that once housed printing equipment. Though vacant, the building is in good shape.

"The good part about it is the building already exists," Gaynor said, adding that a new building could cost $30 million to $40 million. Gaynor said creating a new headquarters would save the money he spends to rent hotel and training space because his current building on New London Avenue is too small and too restrictive. And it is not equipped to handle an extended disaster, like the hurricanes in Florida or Texas last year.

Gaynor said he also likes that the building is next to the DOT maintenance facility around the corner on Lincoln Avenue, and only a mile from Route 95, because the two agencies coordinate operations during inclement weather.

"We’re going to start design shortly," Gaynor said. "If all goes well — and that’s an open question — but I’m pretty persistent on these things, we could probably be in by the summer or fall of 2019."

The Hummel Report is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that relies, in part, on donations. For more information, go to HummelReport.org. Reach Jim at Jim@HummelReport.org. Read more from The Hummel Report at providencejournal.com/hummelreport