Picerne Plans Metro Providence Apartments

By Dees Stribling, Contributing Editor

Plainville, Mass.—Florida-based Picerne Development Corp. has unveiled plans for Liberty Square Apartments in Plainville, Mass. The property will include 248 market-rate units on the east side of Washington St. in the town.

Once completed in the spring of 2015, Liberty Square will offer one-, two- and three-bedroom units with balconies. Tuck-under garages will also be available to residents. Common amenities will include a 9,000-square-foot clubhouse with a fitness room, aerobics room, bar area, game room and kids’ playroom. There will also be an outdoor pool.

Plainville is a town of about 8,200 in Norfolk County, Mass., but it’s in the Providence, R.I., MSA, which has a population of about 1.6 million. It’s also part of the greater Boston/Providence apartment market, which has seen rapid expansion in recent years, with more than 10,000 units developed market wide in each of the past five quarters, ending in the second quarter of 2014, according to MFP Research.

As construction has remained elevated, supply volumes have increased, outpacing or matching apartment demand, MFP also reports. As a result, apartment fundamentals have sagged a little, though the sizable drop-off in rent growth during the fourth quarter of 2013 reversed itself in the first half of 2014. Annual rent growth of 2 percent to 3 percent has become the new normal in the Providence/Boston market.

Picerne has tapped Forum Architecture & Interior Design Inc., also based in Florida, to design Liberty Square Apartments. Over the last 20 years, the firm has worth extensively with Picerne, having designed more than 55 projects for the developer. Structural Concepts & Design is the structural engineer on the project.