The new owners of the landmark Union Trust building in downtown Providence will soon provide commercial tenants in the building with free Wi-Fi Internet access, an internal Web portal and other “intelligent building” features.

FB Capital Partners, the Philadelphia-based private investment firm that purchased the 107-year-old building at 170 Westminster St. in July, is installing the technology upgrades to attract new tenants to the building, which is half empty, said Matt Fair, a broker for Hayes & Sherry Real Estate Services, which is marketing and leasing the office space...

In addition...FB Capital would like to create a business incubator or shared workspace for independent freelancers and entrepreneurs, Fair said.

Brandeis and Hayes & Sherry are working with the R.I. Economic Development Corporation to attract a third party that could help to finance a shared-workspace business model in the building, Fair said.

“The folks from FB Capital bought the building with the intention of making an iBuilding – that’s really exciting for us,” said Stuart Freiman, the EDC’s communications and information technology sector lead. “Essentially, it demonstrates to us yet again that somebody from outside Rhode Island sees the value of bringing that kind of building into Rhode Island, and sees the opportunity to create space for our IT and digital media folks.”