“Olneyville needs a library, not luxury lofts,” exclaimed one poster. Depicting stately Atlantic Mills, another used English and Spanish to demand that “speculative developers” get out of the area, and pronto. A third showed Baltimore-based developer Bill Struever astride a train of “Western manifest destiny” — symbolizing the mammoth $333 million American Locomotive project planned on 22.5 acres in the nearby Valley neighborhood — advancing toward a lucrative and hegemonic future.

Although the agit-prop was quickly taken down, Olneyville’s anti-gentrification guerrillas soon unleashed a far more potent weapon: two videotapes, posted on the Internet sites www.loadrecords.com and www.rifuture.org , in which Karen Shugrue, the leasing agent for Rising Sun, told a seeming prospective pair of renters that an “us and them” atmosphere prevailed between the “very insulated” residents at the refurbished mill and inhabitants of the supposedly dangerous surrounding “ghetto.” Although Shugrue, employed at the time by Providence-based Armory Revival Company, exaggerated Armory Revival’s purchases in the area, she also recited a straightforward roadmap for gentrification: “You know, we’ve bought out pretty much everything that we can buy — so in two years, five years, we’ll pretty much have made this a really cool neighborhood to live in.”

Many of those horrified by these remarks nonetheless thought Shugrue did Providence a big favor by ripping away the lid of development-happy talk to reveal the true intentions of Struever Brothers and Armory Revival, the team responsible for Rising Sun. And although Bill Struever and Armory Revival condemned Shugrue’s words, calling them unrepresentative of their efforts, the 80-plus mostly anonymous comments posted in response on www.rifuture.org revealed a very high degree of tension and vitriol around the issue of West Side development.

Supporters of the duo that made the videotapes called them heroes, while critics, accusing them of a sneak attack, said they should be prosecuted. Self-described Rising Sun residents derided the Olneyville artists — one of the more polite comments is that the artists are conservatives, because they oppose change and embrace Providence’s low-rent past. Boosters responded, touting the neighborhood, a bastion of the city’s creative underground, as a scrappy working class enclave that functions more effectively than downtown Providence (and without vacant storefronts no less). And while gentrification is an old story, critics note the millions in tax subsidies being used and sought in contending that Struever Brothers and Armory Revival’s efforts to incorporate affordable housing are more fig leaf than substance.

Considering surging development on Providence’s West Side, this kind of conflict was probably inevitable. The question now becomes whether it sparks a real search for solutions or merely signals continued clashes.

A broader housing crisis
The tensions around West Side development — and a vanishing paucity of affordable housing — reflect a worsening statewide housing crisis. As the HousingWorks RI coalition (www.housingworksri.org) reported last week, a household with $75,000 in income is currently able to buy a median-priced single-family home in only three communities — Pawtucket, Providence, and Central Falls. Such limited access helps to explain why housing targeted to a higher income level than the norm in Olneyville, one of the poorest parts of the city, has struck such a sharp nerve among the indie-minded artists and many low-and-moderate income Latinos who call the area home. Norman Ospina, co-chair of the Olneyville Neighborhood Association, calls the trend “cultural imperialism.”

The developers, of course, see things quite differently, touting their efforts as things that will enhance Providence. Bill Struever, for example, a Brown graduate whose firm has won plaudits for its adaptive reuse of historic structures, says the company hopes to play a role in creating “a mixed-use, mixed-income lively and diverse neighborhood that preserves its historic buildings, preserves its historic traditions, and captures the spirit of Olneyville and its residents.” Citing the area’s diversity as a strong asset, he says development will result in jobs for local residents, increase public access to the Woonasquatucket River, and other improvements.

Like other critics, though, Jo Dery, one of the artists who made the Rising Sun videotapes, remains convinced that the ongoing wave of West Side development will “not only divide our communities, but displace the residents.”