“What is most important for the safety and security of the Brown community is for DPSEM’s dedicated officers to be present across campus in a way that allows them to build relationships, engage with community members and be ready to respond when needed,” Clements said. “For a police department to serve and protect a community, they need to be integrated into that community, and this relocation plan strengthens DPSEM’s ability to do just that.”

Clements added that the new set of locations will enhance DPSEM’s ability to effectively carry out robust campus public safety operations, consistent with the University’s recently released Safety and Security Action Plan. Most officers are positioned at locations and on patrols across campus, rather than in public safety buildings. And with new, dedicated hubs in high-traffic student areas and a base for administrative operations in the Jewelry District, the department will be able to maintain strong connections with the campus community.

“Our officers are out on foot, bicycle and vehicle patrols across the entire campus 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” Clements said. “Establishing accessible locations across our full campus will give our team more opportunities to be visible, available and engaged with Brown employees and undergraduate, graduate and medical students, closest to where they live and learn, on College Hill and in the Jewelry District.”

Enhancing infrastructure to meet community needs

Brown expects to complete DPSEM’s relocation to the three new sites in Summer 2027, with the community desk in the Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center likely to open sooner.

The department will leave its current home at 75 Charlesfield St., a structure built in 1967 that currently limits DPSEM’s ability to welcome community members and host large training exercises. Once the building is vacated, Brown will proceed with its removal before beginning work on its planned economics building at Brook and Charlesfield streets, including the creation of a publicly accessible green space in the interior of the block currently occupied by a parking lot and public safety vehicles.

By establishing a home for administrative operations at 110 Elm St., Brown will bring together public safety personnel currently based at 75 Charlesfield St. and in South Street Landing at a facility equipped with modern training space, evidence processing areas and interview rooms designed to ensure privacy. And the opening of the two College Hill sites will integrate DPSEM more seamlessly across Brown’s full campus.

“This project allows us to resolve long-standing physical constraints and enhance public safety resources in a manner that will thoughtfully serve both our campus footprint and the surrounding neighborhoods for decades to come,” said Executive Vice President for Planning and Policy Russell Carey, who oversees campus planning.

DPSEM’s location at 110 Elm St. will support ADA accessibility and expand the department’s core administrative operations space by more than 40%. It will provide dedicated parking for emergency response vehicles, a unified workspace for detectives, administrative leaders and emergency management staff, and modern areas for law enforcement training.

The location will provide a permanent, high-profile public safety anchor in one of the University’s fastest-growing academic hubs. The Jewelry District is home to thousands of Brown students, faculty and staff who live, work, study and conduct research every day in the neighborhood home to the Warren Alpert Medical School, the School of Professional Studies, South Street Landing and major University research facilities including the soon-to-open William A. and Ami Kuan Danoff Life Sciences Laboratories. DPSEM’s existing substation at 43 Elm St., in which it provides space to the Providence Police Department, will remain fully operational.

On College Hill, the new DPSEM station at 205 Meeting St. will help to integrate safety services more seamlessly into campus life. The 24/7 station, strategically located between The Walk and Thayer Street, will welcome community members for services like walk-in report filings, witness interviews, fingerprinting, lost-and-found management and safe transaction spaces. The building is currently occupied by Bagel Gourmet, whose owner previously approached Brown to note that he planned to wind down operations after three decades as a Brown tenant and campus partner, creating an opportunity for the University to repurpose the space for vital safety infrastructure.

Together, the station on Meeting Street and the community desk in the Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center will position DPSEM to offer services and ensure a visible presence near the busiest pedestrian pathways on campus. Vice President for Campus Life Pat Poitevien said the locations have the benefit of creating more opportunities for everyday interaction with public safety staff.

“Building trust and making support easier to access requires being present and available in the places students regularly spend their time,” Poitevien said. “These new DPSEM locations will give students more opportunities to ask questions, seek assistance and become familiar with the people and resources available to them.”

Renovation sustains preservation effort

The acquisition of 110 Elm St. follows Brown’s longer-term effort to preserve one of Providence’s oldest surviving industrial structures. The University leased the space beginning in 1999 and invested in a major renovation to a building that had been on the Providence Preservation Society’s “Ten Most Endangered Properties” list from 1994 to 1998. Decades of abandonment and water damage had caused a near total collapse of the two-and-a-half story building, which was constructed in 1848 as the machine shop for the Phenix Iron Foundry and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Brown’s renovation preserved the building’s historic granite facade, massive round-arched freight doors and distinctive roof, while converting the interior into modern Class A office space.

To prepare the Elm and Meeting street buildings for occupancy by DPSEM, Brown will conduct additional renovations, and design and planning is underway for both spaces. Renovations to 110 Elm St. will begin this fall, and renovations at 205 Meeting St. will begin in the coming months following the departure of Bagel Gourmet.

The University expects the Meeting Street station and Campus Center desk to open in late spring 2027. DPSEM administrative, dispatch and operational teams will fully transition to 110 Elm St. in June 2027 following Brown’s 259th Commencement and Reunion Weekend, with site preparation work at 75 Charlesfield St. expected to follow in anticipation of the new home for the Department of Economics.