EAST PROVIDENCE, R.I. — In the steel shell of a former dormitory (more recently, a nursing home), water collects in buckets as construction crews hammer, drill, saw and weld, and heavy machinery is used to cover a series of underground water retention systems.

Next door, the masonry elevator shaft rises three stories above construction crews working on the first floor of a new building.

The two buildings are becoming 95 units of income-restricted housing. One Neighborhood Builders is tackling the project in partnership with Family Service of Rhode Island, Crossroads Rhode Island and Foster Forward. Units are expected to be ready for occupancy by February 2027.

Foster Forward clients, young adults aging out of the foster care system, are eligible for a few of the new apartments. They often struggle to secure housing because few landlords will accept any vouchers when demand is so high.

Forty percent of the units will be for people making 30 percent of the area median income or less, while the remaining 60 percent will be for people making 80 percent of AMI or less.

Work is expected to be done on the two buildings by January 2027. The project’s final phase would see construction of a third building with 49 additional units. A request has been submitted to the state for funding in the next round of income-restricted housing loans and grants. Those awards are expected to be announced in April 2026.

The hope is that the third phase receives funding before the general contractor is done with the first two buildings. If so, that would yield huge cost savings over having to bring in another general contractor later, Director of Real Estate Development Michelle Bleau said.

Site work started in March 2025, and then major construction began in December. Some of the work included creation of the underground water retention systems, with catch basins running the length of the parking lot. They’re designed for a 100-year flood capacity.

“These are basically anywhere where they could fit one in,” Pezzuco Construction Superintendent Douglas Valcourt said.

One of the last portions of construction will be vehicle parking: 145 spaces.

The plan was always for construction of two new buildings and renovation of an old one — a former Johnson & Wales University dormitory that was later turned into a nursing home.

“We cleared everything out — all the old walls, all the wiring, the mechanicals,” One Neighborhood Builders Senior Project Manager Stephen Kearns said.

Inside the old building, only the stairwells were left intact.

“You’re trying to reinvent what you can with what you have,” Valcourt said. “There’s a lot of trying to restore it back to a blank slate and then move forward.”

Crews then had to seal up the holes in the floor where various building systems had been.

“They ran everything differently 40 years ago when this building was built,” Valcourt said.

A dormitory or nursing home, with one massive heating and cooling system, is far different from an apartment complex with individual temperature controls. Apartments will be heated and cooled with Variable Refrigerant Flow (VRF) systems, based on heat pump technology — essentially mini-splits, Valcourt said.

That means holes don’t need to be cut in the walls between units that are supposed to have hefty individual fire ratings.

The whole building is electric, with plans for rooftop solar panels and heat-pump water heaters.

The old building still needs its new roof. Windows from Latvia that weigh twice as much as typical American ones will be much more efficient.

Once the building envelope is done, along with the roof and the siding (masonry exterior finishes were kept), the building will look complete. However, inside is where work still must be done.

Currently, the inside of the old building has been turned from a blank slate to a labyrinth of framing for apartments (including bedrooms, bathrooms and closets), storage rooms, and the electrical room.

Each unit will have blocking installed so that it can become accessible, allowing for a maintenance person to install railings in the shower or swap out the counters with those accessible to a person in a wheelchair, Valcourt said.

The building will have a mix of large studios and one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments. One studio configuration offers a combined kitchen and living room with a bedroom off to the side but without a door. Another apartment configuration comes with a “bonus room” — one the size of a bedroom but without a window or closet that would legally make it such.

“It’s a funky building setup,” Valcourt said. “So, how do you use the middle of the H? Because the building’s a big H. So, how do you use that? You take a little bit from the sides for the units and a little bit from the side from you and you get left with a long, narrow unit. It’s kind of broken up. You got some columns.”

The first floor of the old building will have a few residential units but mostly offices.

Editor’s note: This article first appeared in The Providence Journal and then was distributed on the USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect.

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