PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Work crews have begun tearing down the former Rialto Theater at 119 Mathewson Street in downtown Providence, a nearly 200-year-old building the city cleared for emergency demolition after inspectors found it at risk of collapse.
Crews in hard hats were on site Monday preparing to bring down major parts of the structure. Asbestos removal, one of the last steps before a demolition permit can be issued, started Oct. 15.
The building opened in 1829 as the Westminster Congregational church and later became a vaudeville house. In recent decades its ground floor held the Dragon 2000 restaurant and a newsstand, both now closed, while the theater space upstairs sat empty. The Providence Preservation Society had long counted it among the most endangered properties in the city.
Paolino Properties, led by developer and former mayor Joseph Paolino Jr., bought the property in 2019 for $780,000. Last month the firm won approval for an emergency teardown after a city committee toured the site and reported standing water in the basement, a failing roof, unstable walls and loose masonry that could fall onto the sidewalk. City zoning normally requires a structural engineer hired by the city on that panel, but the committee instead included an engineer retained by the Paolino firm. Deputy planning director Bob Azar said in a city statement that the panel accepted that engineer as an expert and that no one disputed the building was unsound.
The emergency route skips the usual public hearing before the Downtown Design Review Committee. Paolino has said a deal is in place to sell the cleared lot to the Hotel Providence next door, which wants it for parking. Azar has noted that downtown zoning does not allow surface parking as the main use of a site without an approved exception.
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