Specific Plans

These plans address issues and concerns that cross neighborhood boundaries and are of interest to the city as a whole.

Providence Downtown and Knowledge District Plan The study area comprises Downtown Providence, including Downcity and the Jewelry District, and the area of Upper South Providence around Rhode Island Hospital. The most detailed study was conducted on the area south of Pine Street (the "Knowledge District") because of the growing cluster of knowledge-based uses and large amounts of vacant land available for infill development. Despite being bisected by Interstate 95, the two halves of the Knowledge District are intricately connected due to the presence of institutional and research facilities in the Jewelry District and in the hospital campuses. The plan strives to establish an inspirational vision that will spur investment and facilitate new growth and prosperity in Providence. Click here to view the Providence Downtown and Knowledge District Plan.

IBM's Smarter Cities Challenge (SCC) aims to help cities become smarter- using instrumentation, interconnection and intelligence to provide a coordinated response to events in their cities. Seizing the opportunity to revitalize the City and attract new investment, Mayor Taveras challenged the IBM Smarter Cities team to create actionable recommendations for a new data-driven land-use management system. The aim was to create a system that would efficiently and effectively promote the robust development of the City within and beyond the Knowledge District. To this end, the IBM team set about identifying some of the potential barriers to progress, to enable the City of Providence to plan for transformational change and fully exploit its new potential. Click here to view IBM's Smarter Cities Challenge Providence Report.

The Waterfront Plan was approved by the City Plan Commission at the meeting on Tuesday, December 15th, 2009. Click here for the revised plan. Click here for the Waterfront Plan map.