Lapham Building

A nine-story commercial building turned residential and joined the ranks of its neightbors in the collective called “Westminster Lofts”

About this Property

Redevelopment

The Lapham Building, along with its neighbor the Wit Building, have joined the group of historic buildings renovated by Cornish Associates into Westminster Lofts. The Lapham is a taller building of the bunch which includes the Alice, Burgess O’Gorman, Peerless, Wilkinson, Kinsley, and Smith buildings.

The Lapham Building is now connected to the Wit Building through the second floor space. The first two floors will be commercial space — restaurant possibly on first floors, offices on the second — while the upper floors will be one- and two-bedroom apartments.

Current Events

More photos of the spaces can be found at @WestminsterLofts on Instagram. Leasing information for commercial storefront space and residential lofts is available from WestminsterLofts.com.

History

From the Cornish Associates website press release

The Lapham Building, located at 290 Westminster Street and wrapping around the neighboring Tilden-Thurber Building to 158 Mathewson Street[…] The building originally was home to the Mutual Benefit Insurance Company and has had various office tenants throughout the years. The building has been largely vacant since the late 1990’s.

Lapham & Wit will be combined into one building with the second floors connected to provide 9,000 square feet of flexible commercial office space. The ground floors will be built with space for up to 4 restaurant or retail tenants. Floors 3 through 9 of the Lapham Building will be renovated into 35 one and two-bedroom apartments.

Captured February 11, 2020 from http://cornishlp.com/tag/lapham-building


From the National Register nomination form for the Downtown Providence Historic District, prepared by William McKenzie Woodward, Principal Historic Preservation Planner, 1984

158-172 Mathewson Lapham Building (1904): Hoppin & Ely, architects. 9-story, L-shape-plan, brick-sheathed building with 2-story entrances on both Mathewson and Westminster Streets framed by decorative pilasters and decorative frieze shared with Tilden-Thurber Building (which occupies inside corner of the “L”) above second floor; terra-cotta-decorated pier-and-spandrel system, third through ninth stories; elaborate frieze above eighth story, elaborate bracketed cornice. This office building, built by the heirs of Benjamin N. Lapham, is an integral part of the cluster of turn-of-the-century commercial structures in the Westminster-Mathewson Street area.