When UNICOM announced last November that it was moving its operations from Providence to Woonsocket, company President Marc Davis cited the city’s tax incentives as a key reason behind the decision. UNICOM, which now operates at 297 Elmwood Ave., will build a new, 25,000 square-foot corporate headquarters in Woonsocket’s Highland Corporate Park. Its new site occupies 6.7 acres, and gives the company room to expand by another 50 percent beyond the space already planned.
UNICOM, founded as a camera company more than 60 years ago, is now a high tech company. Its core businesses include project services and application development. Davis said the company, which employs 225, needed to move because it had outgrown its 9,000 square-foot Providence site.
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Maryanne DeChambeau, director of marketing for UNICOM, said the site work on the new property is expected to be complete by May 1. Construction will begin after that. The company plans to move into the new building in October, she said.
To lure UNICOM in, the city offered a 10-year tax incentive that freezes the company’s tax burden at $24.10 per $1,000 valuation. While the tax rate remains the same, however, the percentage of the company assessed valuation that it is responsible for paying taxes on starts out low and climbs gradually from year to year.
For example, for the first year, the company will pay taxes on about 40 percent of its assessed valuation. The percentage will then climb from year to year until it reaches 100 percent in the 10th year.
And after the 10-year tax rate freeze, “All bets are off,” said the city’s tax assessor, Arthur E. Bouchard Jr. By then, the company will pay the city’s going tax rate, he said.
The incentives the city used were created by the city council in 1992 as part of an economic development strategy to bring jobs into the city. But the tax breaks it awards to companies like UNICOM also help boost its tax base. Bouchard said UNICOM is projected to bring in $34,463 per year in real estate taxes once the 10-year period is up.
In addition, the company will pay $6,000 per year in personal property tax, bringing the total impact to $40,463. The tax revenue the company will generate is comparable to the city’s other large companies, he said. CVS Corp., its largest taxpayer, pays more than $1,540,000 per year, Bouchard said. CVS’s headquarters is located in Highland Park as well.
Last year, the city council gave Mayor Susan D. Menard permission to extend the phase-in program to UNICOM. The city’s tax rate has remained the same since 1996.
However, the city is implementing a tax revaluation that will be in effect for the July tax bills. The tax rate could change then. Joel Mathews, the city’s director of planning and development, noted that the tax freeze that UNICOM agreed to last year allowed the company to lock in the benefits of what is likely to be a lower tax rate than the city will have as of July. The city’s last valuation was in 1986, when property values were at an all-time high. Because values have dropped since then, the tax rate is likely to change, he said.
Mathews added that while the city is looking to use its side of Highland Park (the other side is in Cumberland) to expand its tax base, the city’s first priority is creating new jobs. Twenty years ago the best and brightest of Woonsocket had to leave the city to find high-paying jobs. Today, they are coming back, he said. For example, while the city’s population has dropped by 3,500 in the past 10 years – it is now 43,877 – the number of jobs the city offers has increased by 1,200, he said.
“Woonsocket’s main priority in economic development is not so much maximizing land sales or the tax base, although we’re looking to do those things,” Mathews said. “Our main priority is job creation; all the programs we have developed and are offering are created around job opportunities.”
UNICOM will bring about 250 jobs to the city, Mathews said, with average salaries of about $45,000. The city still has eight sites remaining on its side of Highland Park, covering about 50 acres. And with the $30 million addition that CVS is completing to its headquarters, the future looks bright for job development in Woonsocket, he said.
“Woonsocket 30 or 40 years ago was mostly mill workers, but with new business moving into town that is gradually (changing),” he said. “We have crossed the line where more people left Woonsocket to work, to where more people are coming to Woonsocket than leaving.”
