By W. Zachary Malinowski
The Providence Journal
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — The state has received proposals from four property owners to house a regional probation and parole office outside downtown, two months after a wave of opposition forced Governor Chafee to cancel plans to put the operation in the main business district.
Richard A. Licht, Chafee’s director of administration, sent The Providence Journal an email on Wednesday naming the four bidders and their locations. They are in Olneyville, the West End, the Reservoir section and South Providence.
None of them are close to the office building on Fountain Street that the state Properties Committee initially approved three months ago.
The bidders are: Ralph Shuster Inc., 610B Manton Ave., Olneyville; The Cathedral of Life Christian Assembly, 433 Elmwood Ave., West End; Mashpaug Partners LLC, 77 Reservoir Ave., Reservoir section; and 56 Associates Management LLC, 187 Broad St., South Providence.
Licht declined to release the amount of each bid, saying the information is not public until the state completes the “procurement process.”
Details on who runs Mashpaug Partners and 56 Associates Management do not exist because they are limited partnerships. Former Providence Mayor Joseph A. Paolino Jr. is listed as the registered agent for Mashpaug Partners.
The registered agent for 56 Associates Management is Moses Afonso Ryan Ltd., a downtown law firm that has strong political connections.
The president at The Cathedral of Life Christian Assembly is the Rev. Jeffery A. Williams, a well-respected community organizer and proponent of nonviolence in the city. David Malkin is listed as the president of Ralph Shuster Inc.
Licht said the process for accepting bids closed on March 5. The Department of Administration will review the bids and make a recommendation to the State Properties Committee. Once that is done, the Department of Administration will begin negotiations to determine where the Providence Council regional office of probation and parole may move. Final approval must come from the Properties Committee and the General Assembly.
Licht said it’s unclear when the move will be finalized. He said it depends on how long it takes for the landlord to get the building ready.
In December, the Properties Committee chose the Fountain Street space without a formal request for proposals after the Department of Corrections sought a waiver so the move could be made quickly.
In seeking proposals this time, the state specified that the location not be near any schools or daycare centers, without specifying a distance; have at least 25 parking spaces and 5,000 square feet of floor space.
The Properties Committee on Dec. 17 approved a plan to transfer the office from the Urban League of Rhode Island headquarters at 246 Prairie Ave., in South Providence, to first-floor space at 40 Fountain St., an eight-story building where the state has rented other space.
The Fountain Street building isacross from The Providence Journal Company building and about a block from the Rhode Island Convention Center.
A.T. Wall, state director of corrections, sought the move after he learned that the Urban League was having financial problems and was trying to sell its headquarters to a real estate developer in Massachusetts who reportedly proposed a $30-million medical site.
Dennis Langley, then chief executive officer and president of the Urban League, said the sale for $2.6 million would allow his nonprofit to pay off more than $2 million in debts, including $378,000 that it owes the city.
The administration of Mayor Angel Taveras, which controls the building’s future, has been reluctant to allow Urban League officials to sell the property.
The proposed relocation of the probation and parole office immediately came under fire from the downtown business community and several politicians who felt that hundreds of ex-convicts reporting to their probation and parole officers could create safety problems and drive away other businesses.
Among the most vocal critics were Laurie White, president of The Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce, and Angus Davis, a businessman who runs Swipely, a growing high-tech firm at 10 Dorrance St., that employs more than 80 workers.
“This type of facility for rehabilitating offenders belongs at the existing ACI headquarters, or in an industrial area, not in the hub of commerce, tourism and arts we are working so hard to grow in the heart of the capital city,” he said.
Mayor Taveras said at the time that the state should “consider all its options” before making the move. City Council President Michael Solomon said he was “sensitive to the concerns raised by my colleagues in the private sector.”
The Department of Corrections said that 1,517 former prisoners and another 241 on “low supervision” would have reported to the Fountain Street office, which would have had double the floor space of the Urban League location and more than triple the rent to $132,360 annually.
Not everyone agreed with White and Davis. Sen. Joshua Miller, D-Cranston, and Teny O. Gross, executive director at the Institute for the Study & Practice of Nonviolence in Providence, said that ex-convicts have as much right to be downtown as anyone else.
Wall, the corrections director, said in December that the Fountain Street location would provide easy access for former prisoners to take public transportation to Kennedy Plaza.
But, on Jan. 6, Chafee and Licht announced that 40 Fountain St. was out and that they would seek a new location.