From amid the doldrums of economic lethargy, good news and potential roses for 2013 arose last year in downtown Providence, where the Arcade is being redeveloped, as are four buildings once owned by Providence Gas.

Dr. Downtown suspects that readers with good memories may recognize the above paragraph as the first sentence from last year’s dispensation of roses and raspberries. Not a lot has changed. Well, let’s go to the tape:

• A rose to Evan Granoff for reopening the Arcade just in the nick of time, since he closed it late in 2008, to avoid missing the Five-Year Rule. Like the five-second rule that lets you eat dropped food if it has been on the floor no more than five seconds, the Five-Year Rule lets the Arcade resume its landmark status as the oldest (not the first) indoor mall in America. Most of the 17 shops and eateries have opened; the Granoff rose will bloom when new downtowners fill the 48 micro lofts on the upper floors. That is expected at . . . any moment.

Please read the rest of this column at The Providence Journal.

[Editor’s note: New readers of this new blog, successor to my blog at the Journal, should be aware that “Dr. Downtown” is the alter ego of the author of this blog, filling in when matters of architecture and design call for comment backed up by special expertise. He occasionally hosts an architectural advice column. The yearly dispensation of “roses and raspberries” is his annual moment in the spotlight.]