West End mill to become incubator

THE PROPOSED Room & Works project will be aimed at young professionals, including recent college graduates, who want to live and work in shared space.
THE PROPOSED Room & Works project will be aimed at young professionals, including recent college graduates, who want to live and work in shared space.

PROVIDENCE – A vacant, West End mill complex will be converted to a culinary and startup incubator program, using a combination of historic preservation tax credits, and now, city property tax incentives.
The City Council on Thursday gave final approval to a 15-year schedule of graduated tax payments for the Armory Kitchen Entrepreneur Incubator Program.
Developer Cromwell Ventures LLC plans to rehabilitate the former Klein Building, at 55 Cromwell St., as well as two adjacent, vacant buildings. Altogether, 70,000 square-feet of building space will be rehabbed, and a vacant lot redeveloped.
The ordinance creating the property tax program has been forwarded to Mayor Jorge O. Elorza.
The proposed Room & Works project will be aimed at young professionals, including recent college graduates, who want to live and work in shared space. It will include 40 apartments, primarily one-bedrooms, as well as 10,000 square-feet of communal work space, available for short-term leases, according to a project overview. Two commercial-grade kitchens will be opened for food entrepreneurs at affordable and flexible terms. The Armory Kitchen will include a pop-up restaurant and an exhibition kitchen with audio/video production capabilities.
Under the 15-year tax program, the development company will pay current property taxes for the first five years, followed by a slow phase-in over the next 10 years. Payments will be based on gross revenue produced on-site, but the city will receive minimum annual, guaranteed payments, ranging from $15,567 in the first five years, to $130,000 in the final, 15th year of the tax phase-in.

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