In 1926, Woonsocket industrialist Arthur Darman funded with $1 million of his own money the Stadium Theater, which was to be an affordable entertainment center for the Woonsocket community.
In the early 1990s, the nonprofit and all-volunteer Stadium Theatre Foundation set out to restore the theater to its original grandeur, which by that point, had been closed for more than 20 years. In 2001, the Stadium Theatre reopened on its 75th anniversary.
12 years later, a proposal was made to restore the adjacent historic Stadium Building. The Stadium Building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and remains in dire need of help to halt it's deteriorating condition.
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Two months ago, the Woonsocket Zoning Board heard from a large contingent of the "nonprofit and all-volunteer Stadium Theatre Foundation" that the adjacent Stadium Building project would serve primarily low income housing and that would have a negative impact on the immediate area. The Zoning Board apparently agreed, killing the plan on a 5-0 vote.
Cathy Levesque, the executive director of the Stadium Theatre Foundation was quoted in the Woonsocket Call: “Unless it’s an arts and entertainment center, we’re not interested,” she said. “We’re not interested in going into the low-cost housing business.”
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What's this? People in the non-profit arts community boldly proclaiming a disinterest in the needs of the people? Hardly!
It's not likely that Ms. Levesque is against helping people who need affordable housing. What she was trying to point out is that following an investment of $3 million in the Stadium Theater restoration, it might be a good idea to evaluate the impact on the surrounding neighborhood to see if the project was a good fit. The Woonsocket Zoning Board did their job well finding that there was not a good fit.
It's a lesson the Barrington Planning Board might want to spend some time thinking about. The 10% affordable housing goal is, after all, just a goal, not an excuse for reworking entire neighborhoods.
