The Rhode Island Department of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF) could lose the Providence headquarters it has called home for over two decades if the department can’t secure state approval of a new 10-year lease by the end of July.
That wouldn’t bother some of the approximately 460 state workers who report to work in the building at 101 Friendship St. in the capital city’s old Jewelry District. A recent union survey found nearly 86% of respondents did not want the building’s lease to renew when it ends on Nov. 30, 2025, due to problems with the building’s aging interior.
The 140 members of SEIU Local 580 who took the survey this month outlined a long list of complaints, from a lack of parking to infestations by insects, mice and other rodents populating the building’s five floors. The most cited complaints in the survey, however, involved odors and poor air circulation.
“It’s disgusting in this building. I have 30 years left. Please let us leave,” wrote one respondent.
Officials for DCYF and the Department of Administration sought the approval of a new decade-long lease from the State Properties Committee on Tuesday morning, but the panel instead postponed the matter pending a review of air quality reports.
“The reports have been done — DCYF’s responded to them in the past,” Chairman Marco Schiappa, the acting director of the Rhode Island Division of Capital Asset Management & Maintenance, said in an interview. “We just have not seen the reports.”
Schiappa said one copy was given on Monday to Rachel Rebello, a special assistant attorney general who sits on the nine-member panel.
Rhode Island Current requested a copy from DCYF. A spokesperson acknowledged the request but did not immediately provide one.
Adam Boudreaux, the state’s chief property manager, told the panel that DCYF decided to renew the lease for another 10 years in the spring of 2024. The proposed agreement calls for the state to pay an annual rent of $22 per square foot over the first five years, with $23.50 over the back half of the lease.
Based on its 99,500 square footage, the state’s fiscal 2026 budget anticipates a total rent of nearly $24 million over the 10-year term. The agreement, Boudreaux said, calls for improvements including new carpets and paint throughout the majority of the building, new flooring in the lobby and main entrance area, new window blinds, and water fountains with filtration units installed on each floor.
“We have the deal already done, I believe it’s a good deal,” Boudreaux said. “I wouldn’t want to mess it up.”
The lease requires approval by the State Properties Committee no later than July 31, Boudreaux told the committee. If a deal can’t be reached in the next nine days, staff now working inside the former jewelry factory will have to move starting in December.
So where could they go? Nowhere, DCYF Chief of Staff Misty Delgado told the committee.
“Trying to relocate would be close to impossible,” Delgado said. “It would also be very inconvenient for our workforce.”
Boudreaux said the existing location has “served DCYF over the years,” highlighting its proximity to the Family Court at the Garrahy Judicial Complex down the street.
“It is truly a unique location that is perfect for our reasons, and trying to recompete would be very close, close to impossible,” Boudreaux said.
‘Never designed for safe, modern office use’
Just down the street from the DCYF headquarters, a new state health lab rises skyward. The neighborhood is dense with development projects, and a queer nightclub and multistory parking garage flank the agency’s headquarters.
But the building’s unique location can’t undo quirks the workers organized under SEIU 580 noted in the recent survey. Preempting Tuesday’s State Properties Committee meeting was a 4,000-word email to union members on July 17. It compiled the many union complaints about the Friendship Street headquarters and linked to a 2021 newsletter echoing many of the same grievances.
The email introduction argues that the Friendship Street building “was never designed for safe, modern office use.”
At Tuesday’s meeting, Delgado acknowledged the building has had issues in the past, including rodents. But she insisted the building is still safe.
“Our comprehensive testing and monitoring has consistently demonstrated that the air quality is well within all established acceptable ranges,” Delgado said. “I would not put myself or our workforce, or the children and families who serve in a building that was unsafe.”
Asked by Schiappa if there were any documented cases of health issues by workers because of the building, Delgado shook her head no.
“That’s not true,” Matthew Gunnip, a case worker with the DCYF and president of SEIU Local 580, said from the audience. “There’s an active grievance.”
Those past issues got the attention of federal inspectors in 1992 and 1993 when the then-named Rhode Island Department of Employment and Training occupied the building. Federal inspectors noted in 1992 that the building’s windows didn’t open — something echoed in the survey responses from July 2025.
More than 25 years later, ventilation concerns remained a problem, according to the 2019 report compiled by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) after inspectors examined facilities once again in 2018.
Investigators could not conclude if metals present in the air and surfaces inside the building originated from jewelry manufacturing in the past. But overall, NIOSH measured low levels of silver — a metal usually present in manufacturing-polluted spaces — in the building’s surfaces.
Still, NIOSH concluded that building concerns included “signs of a dusty environment, indoor dampness, improperly functioning HVAC system, and rodents and pests.”
A special meeting by the State Properties Committee will likely be held by the committee some time next week, Schiappa said.
This story was originally published by the Rhode Island Current.
