Another DEM Grant for Shannock Village
By Cynthia Drummond for BRVCA
February 21st 2024
RICHMOND – The Shannock Mill project has received a third grant from the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management for the remediation of contamination at the site. The latest $350,000 grant follows two previous grants, of $429,000 and $235,280, from the state’s Brownfield and Economic Development program.
Property owner and developer Jeffrey Marlowe, of Newport, lived in one of the houses on the property when he was in his 20s. As his appreciation grew for the historic and aesthetic qualities of the village, Marlowe began buying and rehabilitating the old houses. In 2013, with guidance from Geoffrey Marchant, who at the time was Director of the Community Development Consortium, Marlowe spearheaded the $1.7 million modernization of the Shannock Water District water system. Then, in 2020, he purchased the mill property at the center of the village.
Marlowe’s plan is to build market rate and affordable housing and small-scale businesses, abutting a public green space by the river. The project aligns with several state priorities.
“This just hits a lot of them, you know?” Marlowe said. “It cleans up a brownfield, environmental justice in an otherwise low to mod affordable housing community. … Shannock’s always been a working - class neighborhood and the buzzword these days is, of course, ‘workforce housing’ and Shannock was always workforce housing.”
Shannock Mill is expected to qualify for a greater density of housing units, because of its affordable housing component.
“Any residential units you build under new construction, 25% of those would have to be deeded affordable housing. When I say ‘deeded,’ I mean 30 years deeded,” Marlowe explained. “We really haven’t gotten into this at the town level yet. There’s been a change of planning officers there.”
Two mills once anchored the site: the Clark Cotton Mill/Columbia Narrow Fabrics Company built in 1848 in the center of the village, and to the West, the Carmichael Mill complex, rebuilt in 1885 after a fire destroyed the original structure.
The mill buildings and several additional structures, which had been vacant for 50 years, were unsalvageable. Marlowe’s crew razed those buildings, a project that was complicated by the permits required for asbestos abatement and demolition. Despite the largely undeveloped state of the site, the Horseshoe Falls dam and the Pawcatuck River flowing past the property give the village an undeniable charm. Shannock Village was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.
The Wood-Pawcatuck watershed was designated in 2019 as “Wild and Scenic” by the National Park Service, and the Shannock Mill project enjoys the support of the Wood-Pawcatuck Watershed Association. Members of the Wood-Pawcatuck Wild and Scenic Rivers Stewardship Council stopped by recently, to meet with Marlowe and hear an update on his progress.
The Remediation Continues
The challenge now facing Marlowe’s team is removing the remaining oil-contaminated soil. Efforts to work with Amtrak to remediate an adjacent contaminated parcel it owns have been unsuccessful.
“We ended up getting huge impact crushers on-site to crush up a lot of the cement,” Marlowe said. “These were the piers that were in the floor of the mill that they used to anchor all the weaving and looms to. The only buildings that are remaining are the turbine room building and the adjacent cut stone granite foundation. … Originally, the mill was sited there and they had a turbine located there for mechanical power. It was all belt drive at one point, then they put in a new hydropower turbine that then was electrified - the mill.”
Housing and Commercial Plans
Two recently-completed affordable housing projects, Richmond Ridge in Richmond and Shannock Village, just over the line in Charlestown, are very close to Shannock Village.
“Richmond dropped their Richmond Ridge in over there, 32 units, and then, Charlestown dropped in the Shannock Village Cottages, 11 units, and I know there’s concern,” Marlowe said, noting that Shannock Mill will offer both market rate and affordable housing.
“We don’t want to throw 100% affordable in the midst of the village and I’m fully in agreement on that,” he said.
The housing, which is expected to comprise 14 units, four of them affordable rentals, will be built at the North Road end of the property.
“Up along the road here, create some housing,” Marlowe said, pointing to a rendering of the site. “This is North Road right across here. So, the idea was, create sort of a four-way intersection, not that there’d be stop signs on all four, but access into the site would be right across from North Road. The beauty of that is, as you’re coming up that elevation grade change, you’re not putting headlights in somebody’s living room.”
Marlowe is also planning a commercial space for the old turbine building.
“I think that turbine building and the structure adjacent to it could really be a beautiful space, with decks open to the river,” he said.
With so much permitting and fundraising still ahead, Marlowe does not have a target completion date.
“We’re going to spend the remainder of this year, probably into early next year, doing the remediation with this latest round of grant funding,” he said. “We should get a long way and this should get us across the finish line, unless there’s some sort of pocket of additional contaminated soils that we haven’t discovered. … What I’m so grateful for, and I know I’m just sounding like a Pollyanna here, but I am, is that the state stuck with us on this project.”