Wellington Square is a mixed-use complex containing retail, office and residential space on a site of a little more
than an acre in the LowerThames Street National Historic District. The neighborhood developed after the Civil War
and has been an area of mixed commercial, industrial and residential use for the last century, with typical
concentration of commercial on the ground floor and residential above along the length of Thames Street.
The Architect's involvement with the project started with a failed attempt for a special exception from the Zoning
Board of Review to allow apartment use in a Waterfront Business District. The Architect then developed a new
strategy based on subdividing the site into five lots and using firewall construction to create separate but attached
buildings that appeared as one. The party developed in section with ground floor retail, second floor office space
reached from a private supplemental stair directly off the sidewalk, and residential as a third floor walk up. It was
directly influenced by the Architect's previous historical preservation work on several 19th century commercial
blocks in Newport. This section allowed the three story configuration within a 35 foot height limit and set the tone
for a massing appropriate for the small scale fine-grain neighborhood.