Demolition of car barn starts
WOONSOCKET — Demolition is underway at the old car barn at the corner of Social Street and Diamond Hill Road.
The long brick building was constructed for the Woonsocket Street Railroad Co. that operated electric street cars to carry workers to their jobs in local mills. More recently the property was home to a former local automotive parts business and a liquor store, JB Liquors, now located across the street.
Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt said on Friday that the owner of the building, Marc Mann, is carrying out clearing of the 1.5 acre site with a private demolition contractor.
About half of the building had already been knocked down, separated into recyclable materials and carted away by Friday.
Baldelli-Hunt said she has learned an attorney
representing the owner will be coming in to meet with her on future development at the site once the clearing project is completed.
“My understanding is they intend to develop one or more retail stores on the property,” Baldelli-Hunt said.
The project is also expected to remove two residential homes at the corner of Social and Adams streets, she noted.
The development of new commercial properties would add to the businesses already in the neighborhood, including the liquor store, a barber shop, a mobile phone store and a furniture business but may not solve the existing parking need, according to the mayor. The car barn property had been used for additional parking while it was vacant in recent years and before the security fencing went up for its demolition, according to Baldelli-Hunt. As far as the owner’s plans for the site, Baldelli-Hunt said she has only heard thus far that they are for retail properties.
The car barn was constructed around the turn of the century by the Woonsocket Street Railroad Company as a place to store its street cars at night and repair the fleet. The street cars were a key mode of transportation for millworkers around the turn of the century and into the 1920s and 1930s. Lines in the state also went out to the major cities as well as recreational locations such as Rhode Island beaches and amusement parks. Street cars from Woonsocket ran all the way through North Smithfield into Burrillville and also out to Lincoln and Cumberland. Two other car barns in the city, one on Cumberland Hill Road, and one at Park Square were also converted to retail and business uses years ago that included a former Almacs supermarket at Park Square and the commercial building housing Ravenous Brewing and Superior Marble and Granite countertops with other business on Cumberland Hill Road today.