Tidewater Landing To Go Before Pawtucket Planning Commission

PAWTUCKET, RI — Fortuitous Partners will appear before the Pawtucket Planning Commission on Tuesday seeking a key approval for the mega-development known as Tidewater Landing.

Fortuitous CEO Brett Johnson and his development team seek preliminary plan approval for an 11,000-seat stadium, a public riverwalk to be constructed by National Grid, a public plaza, and surface and interim parking to service the stadium during the first year of operation.

Fortuitous recently notified the Planning Commission that it wants to modify its schedule to move ahead with the stadium and related amenities ahead of the remainder of the Phase 1 scope.

Among other things, Tidewater Landing envisions professional soccer in Pawtucket. The project, anchored by a stadium, would be built in two phases on 25 acres along the Seekonk River. The properties are owned by the city and National Grid with long-term lease agreements by Fortuitous Partners to develop the properties.

Tidewater Landing received master plan approval by the Planning Commission on January 19 for Phase 1 and Phase 2 of the development. The Phase 1 concept showed a multi-use stadium, public access amenities, a 750-space garage, a 128-space parking lot, 235 residential units, and 15,000 square feet of commercial space, all 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. The concept showed a pedestrian bridge over the Seekonk river to link the two segments.

On Tuesday, expect an in-depth discussion about traffic and parking as Fortuitous lays out a plan to accommodate thousands of cars on game day before the rest of Phase 1 is completed. At least for the first year, there will not be enough on-site parking to accommodate all the cars during events.

Fortuitous submitted an interim parking plan to the Planning Commission to show how they intend to manage stadium operations in the short term. The plan discusses off-site parking, shuttle operations, the use of a real-time parking app, police details and on-street parking enforcement for game day.

In the interim plan, the developers propose 130 permanent parking spaces and 100 temporary spaces directly to the south of the stadium and 305 temporary spaces at Division Street. The off-site parking locations would include McCoy Stadium, Max Read Field, the Jenks School, and the City Hall parking lot. Fortuitous also proposes to gain some extra parking by working with nearby private property owners.

The Pawtucket Planning Department in recent days issued its staff recommendations concerning the interim traffic and parking plan.

“Although we support this parking strategy as an interim approach, we do recommend that this plan be updated, specifically to include more detail regarding actual off-site parking agreements, shuttle operations, parking app details, the design of temporary on-site parking, and anticipated traffic control during game periods, particularly in the form of police details,” the staff recommendation reads in part.

The most common access points to the Tidewater site would be the George Street overpass (I-95 exit 27) and the intersection of Division Street and Portuguese Social Club way. Users would also access the site via the future Pawtucket-Central Falls multi-modal transit center (bus and rail) to be located off Goff Avenue, the interim report states.

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Phase 2 would bring a hotel and indoor event center at the corner of Division and Water streets.

"The development of these parcels not only provides an economic opportunity but an environmental opportunity as well by integrating floodplain redevelopment, stormwater management, public access to the water front, increased recreational development on the water, brownfield redevelopment, and habitat restoration," Fortuitous states.

The multi-use stadium will be designed to accommodate a United Soccer League Championship (USL) soccer club and host Rhode Island's new USL Championship franchise. The venue is also expected to host concerts and other events, the application reads.

The Pawtucket Planning Commission meets at 6 p.m. on June 20. The agenda can be found here.