Rhode Island School of Design’s 15 West Residence Hall

Leveraging P3 delivery for the conversion of a former neoclassical bank into affordable student housing for upper class and graduate students

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, 15 Westminster Street houses the upper class and graduate students from one of the country’s top art and design schools, the Rhode Island School of Design. To meet RISD’s strategic goal of connecting faculty, students, academic facilities, and programs in one integrated environment, Gilbane converted an 88-year-old former neoclassical bank into a student residence hall.

The location of the building—across the Providence River but only a few hundred feet from RISD’s College Hill campus—was ideal for a main library and student housing. As part of the plan, Gilbane completely renovated the existing 12-story, 300,000 SF historic building, designating ten floors to be used as a modern living environment with student life activity spaces, a full-scale café, and informal student gathering areas. The project included integrating two condominiums, one Gilbane acquired and leased with a purchase option to RISD. It also involved a fee simple land acquisition, extinguishing a more than 90-year-old ground lease, and incorporating access and utility easements with adjacent, connected buildings.

The newly designed alcove, loft, and traditional-style apartments provide RISD students with a more flexible urban residential experience, affordable housing, and proximity to studios. By packaging a complex transaction into defined, guaranteed deliverables, we helped RISD expand its on-campus housing by one-third—without sacrificing quality, schedule, or cost.

With a tight project schedule, work began while some tenants remained in the building on various floors. The project team organized demolition around the tenants’ vacancy schedules. In addition, the demolition had to accommodate maintaining a core of functioning toilet rooms as long as any tenants remained in the building. Through careful planning and excellence in project execution, the project was completed on time, and RISD students were able to move into the building as planned.

Project Overview

Complete conversion of a 12-story building listed on the National Register of Historic Places into housing
208 units of the upper class and graduate students housing delivered through public-private partnership (P3)
Design-build-finance (DBF) model
Team: Gilbane Development Company as the developer; Gilbane Building Company as construction manager; and Office dA, ADD, Inc., and STEGMAN + Associates as the design team

“When Gilbane approached us with this deadline, they didn’t just drop the decision in our lap and say, ‘trust us.’ They sat at a table with us to design and define a project that we could be comfortable with.”
Fran Gast
former Associate VP Facilities and Planning
Rhode Island School of Design