Question 12 on next Tuesday’s ballot calls for $46.5 million in state funds
to start renovating, building or modifying state-owned buildings and property
outside the Providence city limits.
The bond issue is designed to reduce the state’s reliance on leased space, but city business leaders and others are concerned that a mass exodus would leave a huge gap in the commercial real estate market.
“We would encourage as much investment as we can in the city of Providence, but we don’t want to lose any more workers so we’d like to keep them here,” said James Hagan, president of the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce.
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Approval of the bond, “Rehabilitation of State Owned Facilities,” would provide funds to the state Department of Administration to begin work on making a number of state-owned buildings ready for use by different state agencies. One of these sites is the renovation of eight old buildings at the Pastore Center, down the road from the Adult Correctional Institutions in Cranston.
According to Joseph Paolino Jr., president of Paolino Properties, the state-leased buildings downtown create stability and are the only constant source of real estate revenue. State employees are also an economic engine on their own, he said – they eat at restaurants and shop in stores and the mall.
“There could be thousands and thousands of state employees taken off the streets of Providence,” he said of Question 12.
The state would be moving employees out of three downtown buildings, totaling 121,768 square feet of space, said Bob Brunelle, associate director of capital projects and property management for the state Department of Administration.
The state is looking to relocate half of the staff – 50,000 square feet of office space – in the 100,000-square-foot Department of Children Youth & Families building on Friendship Street: the staff in the 33,843-square-foot Department of Business Regulation building on Richmond Street, and workers in the 37,925-square-foot building housing a division of the Department of Administration dealing with child support on Dorrance Street. Brunelle said the estimated annual savings from moving out of each of the buildings would be $680,000, $330,000, and $420,000 respectively, for a total of $1.43 million.
The space that the state would be vacating in Providence represents 5 percent of the more than 2.4 million square feet of leased office and administrative space. The state owns and occupies 1.86 million square feet of space, Brunelle said.
“If we’re able to put money into the buildings so we don’t have to tear them down in 10 years, it’s cheaper than paying rent for 20 years,” said Jerome Williams, executive director for operations in the state Department of Administration. “We want to reuse some of our buildings and not just let them go. We want to recapture facilities that are deteriorating and spend money on them now, instead of spending more money to knock them down or more money later to refurbish them. We’re trying to utilize the space we have to save money.”
The bond would not be issued, even if it passes, until Gov. Don Carcieri submits detailed expenditure plans and cost estimates to the General Assembly. After the review of those plans, the General Assembly would then have to pass a joint resolution approving the issue of the bond.
“We as a Chamber of Commerce are supporting six” ballot questions – 1, 2, 3, 6, 13 and 14, Hagan said. “There is almost $400 million in bonds. How much debt can you incur? We are supporting only engines of economic growth and those that produce jobs, so we are not supporting this” bond.
The plan to renovate the eight buildings in Cranston is scheduled to begin in July 2005 and be completed by December 2007, and the Department of Administration estimated that when completed, the useful life span of those buildings would be about 30 years.
Williams said however that he could understand the concern if the city were losing 30 percent of state offices, but these three buildings are in the center of downtown and the DCYF building is actually currently for sale.
“Our intent is not to vacate the city of Providence,” he said.
