This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars.

In downtown Providence, Rhode Island, there's a large plot of land that sits on the bank of the Unasquitucket River.

In 1838, it was the home of the Rhode Island State Prison, which was notorious for its horrid smell, dreary outward appearance, and reputation for solitary confinement.

Later, the land housed the continuing education campus for the University of Rhode Island.

And after that, a dirt parking lot called Ray's Park and Lock.

Then, in 1999, in a grand effort to revitalize the city, and with much fanfare, the Providence Place Mall was opened.

Best of an SLO, producer of the podcast, Nocturne.

The mall, costing $500 million, was what was known as a super regional, a one-stop shopping destination, housing everything consumers could possibly want or need in a totally enclosed space.

Partially funded by taxpayer money, it's banned 13 acres, offered 1.4 million square feet of retail space, and dominated the riverfront.

It was the largest construction project in Providence's history.

This one building, and we sort of stood in awe watching it get built.

Michael Townsend is an artist who lived nearby when the mall was still under construction in the 1990s.

His daily running route took him past the construction site, and Michael says that as he watched it go up, he had an open mind about the project.

He was cautiously optimistic that it would be a welcome addition to the neighborhood.

But yeah, that didn't last long.

Yeah, it's funny.

The revolving to a building like that doesn't really kick in until the skin gets put on.

When something is in its director set mode, what are you just seeing the skeleton?

It's a pretty cool skeleton, but as soon as the flesh is there, you're like, oh, not pretty.

Providence Place was going to be a big boxy stack of shops without much in the way of architectural niceties.

On his runs, Michael watched as that big box was slowly filled with the things that make a mall a mall.

As it's being built, I start to do mental maps of spaces. That's going to be a storage space. That's going to be parking.

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