What's next for Valley Falls and Lonsdale in Cumberland? Revitalization plan in the works

There are two Cumberlands: One where sprawling suburban subdivisions and six-bedroom homes within commuting range of Boston have slowly replaced old farmhouses and hardwood forest, and one that's still dominated by working-class mill villages and shuttered factories.

That second side of town — diverse, multilingual, known locally as "the Valley" — has historically been neglected, Mayor Jeff Mutter acknowledges. But local officials are now seeking to change that. They have high hopes that the worn-down neighborhoods of Valley Falls and Lonsdale can once again become thriving communities, centered around workforce housing.

"This is going to be a more dense area. I don't have a problem with that," Mutter told residents at a community meeting held at the wood-paneled Filibuster Club on Monday. "I know it causes some consternation. But we need it to be a destination."

Using a $100,000 grant from the Rhode Island Commerce Corporation, Cumberland has hired New York City-based 4Ward Planning to come up with an "economic revitalization and social equity" plan for Lonsdale and Valley Falls. On Monday, the consultants sketched out a vision for the area's future: More multifamily housing and mixed-use development; renewed investment in bike paths, benches and trees; new uses for old mills.

Some of the bolder ideas — like relocating a Dollar Tree so that a massive surface parking lot could become a mixed-use housing development near the Blackstone River Bikeway — would require major buy-in from local business owners. Both the planning firm and Cumberland officials stressed that they're still in the early, conceptual stages of developing a strategy to revitalize the area.

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The consultants have been spending time touring Valley Falls and Lonsdale, and Monday's meeting was designed "for them to present their initial findings but also to listen," said Cumberland's Planning and Community Development director, Jonathan Stevens. He told residents that a formal set of recommendations wouldn't be coming until later on.

"We’re really here to hear from you tonight," he said.

Demand for housing could spur revitalization

Valley Falls and Lonsdale both sprang up on the banks of the powerful Blackstone River and owe their existence to the Industrial Revolution. (Lonsdale straddles the Lincoln-Cumberland border.) Like neighboring Central Falls, they have a large share of low-income residents and significant Portuguese and Spanish-speaking populations.

Mutter grew up in "the Valley," where his family has an auto sales and service business. He can recall a time when Valley Falls would sometimes be so bustling with visitors that "you couldn’t get down the street."

But things have changed since Ann & Hope closed. Cumberland Town Hall is situated right in the heart of Valley Falls, but plenty of residents don't know where it is because they rarely venture into the neighborhood, Mutter said. Running for mayor, he heard again and again that "the Valley" felt neglected.

"It just wasn’t getting the same attention," he said. "So it’s always been a priority of ours."

The team of consultants — Todd Poole of 4Ward Planning, and Ken Livingston and Kevin Rivera of FHI Studio, which is a subcontractor of 4Ward — recently spent time visiting businesses in Valley Falls and Lonsdale, talking to residents about what they wanted to see in the area. They're asking locals to fill out an online survey, which is also available in Spanish and Portuguese and can be found at bit.ly/3sQoZJQ.

So far, residents have indicated that they want more restaurants, entertainment and gathering places to draw people to the area, Rivera said on Monday. The Valley Falls and Lonsdale areas were described as "too crowded, cluttered and beat-up looking," without much green space or aesthetic appeal. Respondents frequently described the area as congested and mentioned traffic, while some said that it didn't have enough restaurants and stores to "create a walkable street feel."

One major theme that emerged from the consultants' recommendations: There's demand for more affordably priced multifamily housing.

People are being priced out of Providence, "and that’s not a bad thing for Cumberland," Poole said. Local businesses would benefit from a larger customer base, and "the way you do that is through rooftops."

Already, there are plans to create more housing in the area by transforming the old St. Patrick's Church in Valley Falls into an affordable housing development with 44 units, as well as converting the old Ann & Hope Mill in Lonsdale into 241 apartments.

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Those kinds of projects are key, Poole said: "Most places we see that get revitalized, it's through housing, which then creates the demand for the businesses, and it feeds on itself."

Seeing a Stop & Shop parking lot, and envisioning new apartments

As part of his analysis, Poole identified key parcels of land in Lonsdale and Valley Falls that are currently undervalued and could be reenvisioned. Among them:

∙ The Stop & Shop shopping center on Mendon Road, which has an “overabundance of parking" on nearly 17 acres near the Blackstone River Bikeway. The Dollar Tree and other businesses located on the southern side of the parking lot could be relocated, freeing up close to 5 acres of land that could then become a mixed-use development with retail on the bottom and housing on top.

∙ The Naushon Mill, which is located on Meeting Street and backs up to the Blackstone River. Last year, the Valley Breeze reported that new developers were hoping to convert the old mill into roughly 100 apartments. If those plans fall through, the mill would also be suitable for light industrial uses like small-scale manufacturing, Poole said. (Both Poole and the developers have also suggested adding a commercial kitchen to the ground floor of the building so that a restaurant could make the most of the riverfront location.)

∙ Several properties are located on Ann and Hope Way, in the shadow of the mill. There's room for more multifamily housing that would back up to the Blackstone River, Poole said.

∙ Lastly, in the long term, a stretch of Broad Street corridor could be reenvisioned to encourage mixed-use development with businesses on the ground level and housing above. That would lead to more foot traffic and more customers for local businesses, Poole said.

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For now, all these ideas are strictly hypothetical: The consultants have yet to finalize their recommendations, and once that happens, it will be up to the Town of Cumberland to decide which ones to pursue. (Planning and zoning approvals would be required, and property owners' willingness to sell or redevelop their land is an unknown variable.)

"There’s no plans for any of this, we’re kind of imagining this stuff out as ideas," Poole stressed. Later, he added: "We're playing Sim City here."

Several residents who sat through the presentation on Monday emphasized one concern: Parking is in short supply.

"When this was a mill community, you didn't have cars, because everybody walked everyplace," said one man who did not identify himself. "So now all these homes, either two-family or three-family, they're all parked on the street. The fire trucks can't even get up and down that easily. It's very congested. So how can you propose bringing more, jamming in more people living in a congested area that is overwhelmed with parking as it is now?"

Others expressed doubt that the Broad Street corridor could turn into more of a destination, saying that there already wasn't enough parking for the existing businesses.

Livingston said that it's common for there to be a misperception that a commercial area has no parking when "there's parking there, people just don't know where." The key would be to have one or two clearly marked municipal lots, he said.

Mayor seeks to 'embrace' area's blue-collar roots

Among the challenges that the consultants noted in their presentation: "Relatively low household spending levels pose a hurdle for attracting all but small retail and service businesses."

But there’s also a potential for residents “to be priced out if redevelopment is not thoughtfully executed.”

“This is the gentrification issue,” Poole said “The big G word.” He suggested that Cumberland should “try to make sure there is a big affordability component” baked into any future projects.

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On Monday night, some residents expressed concerns about what revitalization would mean for them. When the consultants' presentation wrapped up, one woman said that she'd "heard a lot about new business and new housing and all of that," but wanted to know how the home that she's lived in and paid taxes on for 40 years would be "protected."

"I have an absolute right to say, 'Before you do this, I want me protected,' because I’ve really been faithful to this town," she said.

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Another resident expressed doubt that there would be a market for new apartments renting at "twelve, fifteen, sixteen, eighteen hundred dollars."

"Living in this community, I don't think it’s going happen," he said. "People are struggling with rents as it is, especially now after electricity’s going up, gas is going up, home heating oil. … I’m not trying to be negative. It’s just reality. This is a low-income part of Cumberland. You want the high income, go up past [Route] 295."

In a brief interview after the meeting, Mutter said that the town sees room to make improvements in Valley Falls and Lonsdale without losing those neighborhoods' blue-collar character. The idea is simply to restore their former vitality, he said.

"This isn't going to be North Cumberland," he said. "I’d like us to embrace that."

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Cumberland eyes revitalization of Lonsdale, Valley Falls with housing