West End mill eyed for incubator

THE DEVELOPMENT company is seeking city tax incentives to ease the rehabilitation costs associated with the project, by providing income-based tax payments for 15 years, according to testimony at a recent Providence City Council finance committee meeting.
THE DEVELOPMENT company is seeking city tax incentives to ease the rehabilitation costs associated with the project, by providing income-based tax payments for 15 years, according to testimony at a recent Providence City Council finance committee meeting.

PROVIDENCE – A vacant mill in the West End neighborhood of Providence could be renovated into a live-work development, with room for what could be the largest culinary incubator program in New England.
The development company is seeking city tax incentives to ease the rehabilitation costs associated with the project, by providing income-based tax payments for 15 years, according to testimony at a recent Providence City Council finance committee meeting.
Cromwell Ventures LLC has purchased the former Klein Building, at 55 Cromwell St., for $375,000, along with an adjacent building at 50R Sprague St., for $150,000.
The Klein property is on the National Register of Historic Places. In 2013, the redevelopment project was awarded $1.6 million in state historic preservation tax credits.
The development team, represented by attorney Nicholas J. Hemond, proposes to renovate the structure into 40 apartments and 20,000-square-feet of commercial kitchen space, along with shared office space.
The project, estimated to cost $5 million to $6 million, would employ about 60 construction workers.
The proposal, recently introduced to the City Council, would include base payments, of the existing property taxes, for the first five years. After the incubator facility is finished, tax payments would be based on a percentage of gross revenues produced on site for the next 15 years, but the city also would be promised a “guaranteed minimum” base payment.
The minimum annual tax payments, beginning in the sixth year of the agreement, would range from $40,000 to $140,000. At full taxation, the project will pay about $160,000 a year, according to Hemond.
The buildings now generate about $1,500 a year in property taxes.

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