PBN: Five Questions With: Jennifer Hawkins

By Mary MacDonald- July 10, 2019 10:30 pm

Jennifer Hawkins is the executive director of ONE Neighborhood Builders, a nonprofit that is working on community-development initiatives in several neighborhoods in Providence. She provided an update on projects and priorities for the organization.

PBN: What is King Street Commons and who will it provide housing for?

HAWKINS: In 2013, we issued a neighborhood revitalization plan called the Build Olneyville plan. It was funded by the [Department of Housing and Urban Development] Choice Neighborhoods initiative.

The idea was how do we connect the Providence Housing development called Manton Heights, which is in the neighborhood, along with the next of the neighborhood. It was physically isolated. The only way to access Riverside Park and that area was through this street that had been closed with Jersey barriers for years because of illegal dumping and crime.

The idea was how do we strategically redevelop this blighted part of the neighborhood that cuts off this public housing from the rest of the neighborhood. We will be constructing 30 apartments and 8,500 square feet of an early childhood education center. It will be four Head Start classrooms. The provider we have selected is Children's Friend.

King Street Commons has two components: new construction of 30 new apartments and the 8,500-square-foot early childhood center, plus the renovation and re-syndication of 32 apartments that were originally constructed in 2001 in the Elmwood neighborhood. In total, it is 62 units.

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