NK Developer Plans $40 Million Transformation of Vacant Wickford Elementary

A North Kingstown resident and developer plans to buy the closed and vacant Wickford Elementary School and invest $40 million to transform the bygone relic into an art hotel and conference center.

The vision of a bustling economic center at the gateway into historic Wickford Village comes from Andy Kinnecom, who happens to be a graduate of the school himself.

In a Tuesday news release, the Town Council announced that Kinnecom is heading a development group that will renovate the school. It will have “meeting spaces, choice restaurants, a top deck lounge overlooking Wickford and Academy Cove, and other amenities now absent from the community.”

The announcement is important for North Kingstown, which has been trying to find a new use for the old building that has sat vacant since the school closed in 2005 and has increasingly become a sore spot for residents, especially after a plan to turn the building into a 30- to 40-room hotel by Stanley Weiss, LLC., fell through last year.

Along with the art hotel and conference center, Kinnecom is proposing building a nonprofit culinary and art school open to the community. It will also include condo units for year-round residents.

Now, Kinnecom and the town have put fresh ink on a purchase and sales agreement that is expected to be ratified on Thursday during a special meeting to be held at the Beechwood Senior Center at 44 Beach Street at 6:30 p.m.

The public is invited to see a presentation by Kinnecom to the town’s Economic Development Advisory Board on Sept. 15 at 5 p.m., also at the Beechwood Senior Center.

A hotel and conference center could be a powerful positive economic force for the town, officials believe. It would open up new avenues for growth and revenue for businesses in Wickford Village as well as the rest of town.

“This $40 million investment will attract visitors, permanent residents and groups requiring the combination of amenities to hold professional meetings and conferences and benefit Wickford VIllage and the entire town,” the release stated.