Today marks the start of the City of Providence's charette for the future of the waterfront along Allens Avenue. Dan Barbarisi offers coverage here. For my previous report on the clashing visions for the area, click here.

The Providence Working Waterfront Alliance has released a study to coincide with the planning session.

Speaking of economic development, and I'm bit late in getting to this, but Jack Templin of the Providence Geeks sees a lot of promise in the ongoing I-195 relocation project:

For those interested in urban and economic development though, the much more exciting aspect of the I-195 relocation project is not what's going up, but rather what will be coming down - the old stretch of I-195.

Grow Smart RI does a lot of good work in helping to preserve the best of the state's distinctive character, so Scott Wolf and his crew want you to know about the group's May 2 Power of Place Summit, for which registration closes next Tuesday, April 29, at noon.

Our inaugural Power of Place Summit in 2006 drew nearly 500 opinion leaders, state and local officials, academics, development professionals, investors, journalists and citizen activists for the launch of Rhode Island’s new smart growth oriented state land-use plan.

Things are heating up for the future of the land being made available by the I-195 relocation, as we saw with the announcement this week of a related partnership between the state and the city. In related news, David P. Riley and some other advocates have long called for maximizing public access to the land that will be available for fresh uses.

I agree with those who call the historic tax credit something well worth preserving. Meanwhile, legislative leaders are set to announce plans to bring "a major film production studio" to Rhode Island.

From the State House:

The news conference is scheduled today, Thursday, Feb. 7, at 2:15 p.m. in the House Lounge on the second floor of the State House.

The debate over the future of Providence's so-called Working Waterfront is due to continue Monday, when the City Council's Ordinance Committee is expected to consider the Comprehensive Plan. This area is just one of two waterfront battlegrounds, as I describe in this week's Phoenix:

Take a look at the upper mouth of Narragansett Bay from a high point on George M.

UPDATE: I meant to note that the Fox Point Neighborhood Association has also registered concerns about this, particularly how the City Council will be voting on the comp plan just slightly more than three months after it put a moratorium on any non-standard development of property along soon-to-be removed sections of I-195.

Speaking of the ProJo, the Sunday version of Rhode Island's statewide daily was on its game yesterday with a quartet of stories that combine to sum up some of the state's greatest challenges:

-- Things had been quiet on the surface for months with Operation Dollar Bill before Mike Stanton swooped in with an update: in short, the FBI is scrutinizing whether state Senator Stephen Alves of West Warwick -- who is no longer in the employ of UBS Financial Services -- killed a tax-incentive measure for a Pennsylvania company to punish Johnston mayor Joseph Polisena for not investing town funds with Alves.

The stretch of North Main Street heading away from the heart of Providence has a mixed identity. On one hand, it's home to cool busineses like Javaspeed Scooters and the Sandwich Hut (try their meatball sub), and was once home to the Rhode Island Reds. Yet as Dan Barbarisi describes in today's ProJo,

North Main Street looks like it is missing teeth.

Struever Brothers Eccles & Rouse and Janet Marie Smith get only props from N4N for their fine improvements to Fenway Park, including the much-coveted Monster Seats and the Rightfield roof deck. Here in Providence, where Struever is moving forward with its anbitious American Locomotive project, some have seen the Baltimore-based developer as a force for gentrification.

Tax subsidies for development projects in Providence have been a contentious subject in recent years. Edward Mazze, a professor of business administration at URI, took on the "let's-make-a-deal state" with a smart op-ed in Saturday's ProJo.

In particular, Mazze calls for a hard look at the reality and rhetoric of fostering business in the state: