The Rhode Island Small Business Development Center has moved its Resource Center from Providence to Pawtucket in an effort to lower operation costs.
The center has been negotiating a move to Pawtucket for the past year to find a smaller space in an effort to reduce utility costs, which were about $1,000 a month for heat alone this winter at its Providence location on Broad Street, said Robert D. Hamlin, state director of the Rhode Island Small Business Development Center.
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The Business Resource Center, now located at 268 Main St. in Pawtucket, serves the small businesses of the city and surrounding communities by offering a variety of training programs as well as technical assistance. Staff at the center assist entrepreneurs at all stages of their business cycle.
“Our focus is to help people who can’t speak English start their own business. We have both Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking people at the center who can help develop road maps for entrepreneurs,” Hamlin said.
All the resources are available for free at the center, which is administered by Bryant University in a funding partnership with the U.S. Small Business Administration, the R.I. Economic Development Corporation and Bank of America.
Pawtucket’s space availability, with its abandoned mills, and the city’s willingness to flex to spur economic development is making it a destination for people who can’t afford locations like Providence and Boston, Pawtucket Mayor James Doyle said.
“We’ve had a great influx of residents and some businesses because people are shopping for the lowest prices, and we do what we can to welcome them,” Doyle said.
The business center relocation comes just as Pawtucket welcomes a group of California developers that plan to transform the old Hope Webbing complex, which spans two city blocks, into a small urban community of artist lofts, a theater and retail space. The development is expected to be complete in three to five years, Doyle said.
“The pendulum is swinging back for us,” he said.
