Dilapidation, expenses reasons for Fernwood destruction
The Fernwood Building, which once housed the department of communicative disorders, no longer meets ADA standards and is set for demolition. PHOTO CREDIT: Siobhan Richards
The University of Rhode Island is planning on demolishing the Fernwood Building on Kingstown Road after determining that necessary maintenance would cost more than the building is worth.
Fernwood housed the department of communicative disorders until recently, when they were relocated to the Independence Square Foundation building in the spring of 2020.
The early history of Fernwood is unclear, but it is thought to have been built in 1938 as a rooming house, according to Ryan Carrillo, the director of planning and real estate development for URI.
He said that the building currently needs to bring the roof, windows, heating system, and ventilation up to ADA code to make the building usable again.
“The amount of money that it would take to renovate that building is excessive relative to what we will produce when we’re done,” Carillo said. “You know, we’d have 12 offices, potentially.”
According to him, the 12 offices would not be worth the costs and efforts necessary to bring the building up to code, so tearing it down was the clear choice.
Abigail Rider, the vice president of the division of administration and finance, wrote a proposal to demolish the building for the Board of Trustees.
“Situated on a prime site along route 138,” Rider wrote, “this declining building presents a poor face to the surrounding community.”
The University planned on starting the process towards demolition shortly after the department of communicative disorders left the building, but once COVID-19 hit, the plans were pushed back since it wasn’t a priority, according to Carrillo. Now that there has been a gradual return to normalcy, plans for the demolition of Fernwood are once again moving forward.
There are several steps in the process for removal, and Carrillo said that two have already been completed. The Rhode Island Historical Preservation and Heritage Commission, which is required to approve demolitions of any state-owned buildings that are over 50 years old, has approved the demolition, as have the URI Board of Trustees.
The next phase of the demolition starts with getting approval from the state properties committee and then getting together a set of documents that can go out to bid about how the property will be restored once the demolition.
Once the paperwork is in order, the project will be aided by the office of capital projects in delivering the project on time and ensuring it’s in accordance with all appropriate Rhode Island and federal laws and codes.
Kenneth Burke, the assistant director of the office of capital projects, often works with Carrillo in his offices after the designing and planning are done for a project.
“When things are buttoned up, they’ll hand [projects] off to our office and we build or deconstruct the project,” Burke said.
Carrillo said that with all of these requirements, there probably won’t be any moves towards demolition until the summer of 2022 at the earliest. He said that there are no definitive plans for a new building to take Fernwood’s place, but there have been talks about the potential spaces that could go there.
“It’s really spaces that would be, you know, outreach to the community, being right on [Route] 138,” Carrillo said. “It has the unique advantage of being able to interface with our local community in an easier way than something that’s kind of further in the heart of campus, but we don’t have specifics.”