From Yoga Instructor to Citizen Developer

Citizen developer Alison Bologna at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for 390 Pine Street. (Source: Twitter/@RIHousing.)

Residents of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, may recognize Alison Bologna as their local NBC news anchor and others as the owner of Shri Yoga Studio. Now, the multi-hyphenate Rhode Islander is adding developer to her resume. 

On August 29, the Conant Thread District of the city welcomed 390 Pine Street, a former mill Bologna spent years converting into a mixed-use building, replete with mixed-income housing and retail opportunities. “This was a vacant building that will now provide commercial space, an art center, food bank, art studio, café, eight units of housing, all thanks to Alison,” said Rhode Island Secretary of Housing, Stefan Pryor. “Alison is a renaissance Rhode Islander; there are now developers trying to build more housing around this train station.”

Bologna’s road to the ribbon cutting stretches back to 2010, when she first opened Shri Yoga Studio in downtown Pawtucket. Back then, downtowns all across Rhode Island were struggling to bounce back from the 2008 recession and campaigns to rejuvenate interest in Pawtucket in particular were failing to deliver their promises. Yet Bologna’s model—offering low-cost and free yoga classes to students and seniors who otherwise wouldn’t have access—proved resilient. In the next few years, she’d collect over 8,000 students.

Shri outgrew several leases since it opened and by the second half of the decade, Bologna was eying a more permanent home for her studio. The city’s mayor, Donald Grebien, convinced her to look into the mill, which at the time was 15,000 square feet of underutilized space in an area zoned for mostly industrial use. What made it especially attractive, however, was not only was the mill on the National Register of Historic Places, it was just blocks away from a new commuter rail hub.

She closed on the property in January 2020. However, not only did the COVID-19 pandemic soon follow, but a fire next door nearly jeopardized Bologna’s plans. The mill was intact, but approximately one million square feet of space adjacent to it was destroyed. The delays not only cost Bologna time, but in the next two years, construction costs ballooned, putting the project $700,000 over the budget, according to Grebien.

The inflated budget, delays, and assorted setbacks that seemingly accompany any development could’ve compromised her plans to keep the housing in the project affordable. But Bologna was determined to stick to the plan, which meant getting a little creative and being willing to have a lot of conversations. 

One of these conversations evolved into the Conant Thread District being designated an opportunity zone, according to Mayor Grieben. This not only eased the financial strains on Bologna’s project but meant the area could welcome more citizen developers like her. The more homes and retail beside 390 Pine and the commuter rail hub, the better the return on those existing investments. Other conversations turned into community buy-in, with neighbors, non-profits, and businesses willing to invest in what they saw as a boon for Pawtucket’s future.

When the doors to 390 Pine opened on August 29, Bologna had a long list of partners and supporters to thank, many of whom are enshrined on the building’s Giving Wall. The sheer number of local supporters attached to the project is one of its defining features. “The revitalization of 390 Pine St. is not about one person, or even one project,” Bologna told the mayor. “It’s really about designing space, for good work, to inspire others.”

Ultimately, Bologna’s story is one echoed by many citizen developers. In contrast to their corporate out-of-town counterparts, citizen developers are embedded in the communities they want to see thrive. They have a deep connection to the place they’re willing to build upon and a long-term personal (not just financial) investment in its success. As a result, community buy-in is a central ingredient, not a box to check off. 

They’re also best positioned to observe what a community—their community—needs, what opportunities are undervalued, and what spaces underappreciated. “And the model of development is fundamentally cultivative as opposed to simply extractive,” Strong Towns Senior Editor Daniel Herriges wrote of South Bend, Indiana’s, coalition of citizen developers which likewise repurposed derelict industrial properties. “You’re creating value through patience and commitment to a place. This also means you can’t be a lone wolf. You will realize more value—and this includes financial return on your own development projects—if you work to lift the whole community up with you.”

Like in South Bend, Bologna leaned on community members in Pawtucket and in return, cultivated a community around a shared vision for Pawtucket. Now the city has a philanthropic yoga studio, apartments available at subsidized and market rates, and a soon-to-open café “run by adults of all abilities,” as Bologna put it, all within walking distance to a new commuter rail hub.

As Kevin Farrell of Coastal One Credit Union, one of those in attendance at the ribbon-cutting, put it: “This was not about profit, this, at its core, was what can we do for the community. From that perspective, it’s a home run.” 

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Asia Mieleszko
Asia Mieleszko

Asia (pronounced “ah-sha”) Mieleszko serves as a Staff Writer for Strong Towns. A dilettante urbanist since adolescence, she's excited to convert a lifetime of ad-hoc volunteerism into a career. Her unconventional background includes directing a Ukrainian folk choir, pioneering synaesthetic performances, photographing festivals, designing websites, teaching, and ghostwriting. She can be found wherever Wi-Fi is reliable, typically along Amtrak's Northeast Corridor.

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