Pawtucket Planning Commission OKs Tidewater Stadium And Riverwalk

PAWTUCKET, RI — Plans by Fortuitous Partners for an 11,000-seat stadium, riverwalk, and public plaza — Phase IA of the massive $400 million Tidewater Landing project — gained preliminary site plan approval from the Pawtucket City Planning Commission Tuesday night.

As part of the package, Fortuitous also gained conditional approval for an interim parking management plan to deal with traffic during the stadium's first year of operation. During events, guests would use a special parking app to navigate to a reserved spot in a nearby city or state-owned lot, and then walk or take a shuttle to the site. Fortuitous must provide further details about the parking plan in the coming weeks.

Dan Kroeber, director of development and managing partner with Fortuitous, appeared via Zoom with representatives from Dimeo Construction, Odell Architecture, and traffic engineers with SLR International.

Fortuitous Partners via City of Pawtucket

"We've been super-focused on getting the stadium ready to go," said Kroeber, who delivered a slide show depicting a sports and entertainment center on the west side of the Seekonk River.

Architectural renderings showed a beer garden, a riverside bar, a food hall and other amenities. The "soccer-centric" multi-use stadium would connect with a public plaza and riverwalk to be built by National Grid. Kroeger described a stormwater management plan and said National Grid, which owns the property the stadium would be built on, will soon begin site remediation.

The five-member commission voted 4-0 in favor of granting preliminary approval to the "Phase IA" plan. Monique Renaud, Karen Kolodziel, Steven Pedro, and Stephanie Olarte voted yes. Antero Martins, who could be seen talking on the phone during the meeting, had disappeared from the Zoom screen when the roll was called, so his vote was not cast.

The commission agreed to a set of conditions outlined in staff recommendations read into the record by Assistant City Planner Jay Rosa.

Fortuitous recently told the city that it wishes to move ahead with the stadium and related amenities ahead of the remainder of the Phase 1 scope. With Tuesday's affirmative vote, the developers are free to pursue remaining permits with the intent to break ground on the stadium this fall.

The stadium will be designed around the needs of a United Soccer League Championship (USL) soccer club. Fortuitous CEO Brett Johnson, co-chairman of the Phoenix Rising Football Club, has said he hopes to launch professional soccer in Pawtucket in the spring of 2023. The venue is also expected to host concerts and other events.

The broader $400 million project received master plan approval on January 19. It would be built in two phases on 25 acres along both sides of the Seekonk River. The Phase 1 plan showed the stadium, riverwalk, plaza, a 750-space garage, a 128-space parking lot, 235 residential units, and 15,000 square feet of commercial space on the west side of the river. East of the river at Division Street, the Phase 1 concept included 60,000 square feet of office space, 41,750 square feet of commercial space, 200 residential units, a 150-space garage and a 200-space parking lot.

Phase I also showed a pedestrian bridge over the Seekonk river to link the two segments. The bridge was not included in the "Phase IA" segment approved Tuesday, but Kroeber said Fortuitous is "absolutely committed to it as a fundamental piece of the project."

Phase 2 would eventually bring a hotel and indoor event center at the corner of Division and Water streets. The underlying properties are owned by the city and by National Grid with long-term lease agreements by Fortuitous Partners to develop the land.

National Grid will be capping contaminated soils in the area where the stadium will be built, Kroeber said.

Representatives from the Taft Street Community Garden spoke during a public comment session and said Fortuitous had worked with them to relocate, and that Dimeo Construction was building new raised beds for the non-profit. The garden will be displaced by the development.

Other members of the public questioned whether crowds and cars that appear for concerts and soccer games would help or actually hurt local businesses. Local media personality Pat Ford took aim at the project, said that the opposition had been "silenced," and asked what would happen if Tidewater Landing fails as a business venture.

Rosa said that project financials are outside the purview of the city planning commission, but noted that the developers will have to appear before the City Council at some point for approval of a tax increment finance agreement.

The project is located in a federal opportunity zone, meaning that private capital investors are eligible for a tax shelter. When the project was first announced in 2019, officials said public investment is expected to be around 20 percent of total project cost, in the range of $70-90 million, with most of that to come from state revenue.

Pawtucket Mayor Donald Grebien in 2019 called Tidewater Landing a "game changer" that will provide "transformative economic development at the gateway into our state." At the time, Grebien expressed hope that nearby parcels owned by the Apex Companies would also be part of Tidewater Landing, but that concept is now mired in litigation.

Rosa, in reading his staff recommendation Tuesday night, said Tidewater Landing would advance a number of planning goals, including economic development, public access to the river, connection to the downtown, and environmental improvement.

"It checks off a lot of city priorities," he said.