The State Properties Committee voted Tuesday to transfer the ownership of an addition to a community center in Newport’s north end from the Rhode Island Department of Education to the local public housing authority. The transfer is necessary to comply with requirements for using federal pandemic relief money to renovate the site.
“These funds really allow us to transform that building, modernize it for 21st-century learning,” Rhonda Mitchell, executive director for the Housing Authority of Newport, told the committee.
The unanimous decision returns the vacant “Gallagher Wing” of the Florence Gray Center on York Street back to the Housing Authority of Newport so plans can proceed to renovate the center into an Aquidneck Island community hub.
That will allow the authority to access all $7.5 million in Community Learning Center Municipal Grants awarded in 2024 for capital projects that must be completed by October 2026. The money comes from the American Public Rescue Plan Act of 2021.
The work includes upgrades to the interior layout, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, interior finishes, fixtures and equipment. The wing will get a new interior staircase and hallways, along with a telemedicine room, two computer labs, four multipurpose rooms, and seven classrooms.
“We’ve got a construction team lined up ready to work,” Mitchell said in an interview after the vote.
The Rhode Island Department of Education has owned the center’s Gallagher Wing since 2011 when construction began on the Met School’s Paul W. Crowley East Bay Campus next door to the community center. The Met is a network of six small, public high schools in Providence and Newport.
At the time, the state-operated Met Center planned to use the two-story Gallagher Wing to hold classes, offices, and other school functions, according to a letter from the RIDE Chief Operating Officer Mario Carreño to the committee.
But the Met Center has hardly used the space, Carreño wrote. And because the federal grant does not cover renovations in existing school buildings, the Housing Authority would only be able to fix around 80% of the building.
“It would be just left vacant if it weren’t transferred,” Carreño told the committee.
Mitchell called the reacquisition “a huge milestone” as the authority has sought to upgrade the building since 2017.
Community Learning Center Municipal Grants have provided $81.7 million to Rhode Island cities and towns to renovate, add on to or build new buildings, such as recreation centers, community centers, wellness hubs and libraries.
As of mid-July, the state’s website notes that a little over $540,000 of the total $7.5 million had been spent on the project, mostly toward contractors’ architectural and engineering fees.
With the project completion deadline now 13 months away, the building as of Tuesday, is fully under the authority’s control.
A copy of the state’s transfer deal was not immediately made available. Carreño told the committee that while the agreement carries no cost, the state will require the Housing Authority of Newport to keep the space off the market for the next 10 years.
Mitchell said she does not anticipate such a sale would ever happen.
“We would envision that it’s always a community center,” she said.
The building has several tenants, including Fab Newport, the East Bay Community Action Program, Turning Around Ministries, and Boys & Girls Clubs of Newport County.
This story was originally published by the Rhode Island Current.
