After more than 50 years under family ownership the Palisades Mill Complex, a 13-building campus that’s prominent in South Kingstown’s Peace Dale neighborhood, is up for sale. Town planners are wary of uses that don’t fit with the complex’s industrial past but are willing to consider flexible reuse options.
“We have here, in South Kingstown, a fairly limited amount of industrial space, and our zoning board was concerned that a residential reuse would take over one of the remaining industrial complexes,” said Planning Director Vincent Murray, who’s been discussing the future of the 160-year-old mill for several years with Gary and Kevin Guarriello – the mill owners.
“We’ve wanted a little different approach than residential reuse,” he said soon after the buildings went on the market on March 22.
Because the property is of value to the town – including a current annual property tax of $104,000 – it also has been the topic of a future-use feasibility study, compiled during 2005 by Newport Collaborative Architects.
The feasibility study demonstrated uses that ranged from 96 residential units with 45,000 square feet of office space, to more of a mixed-use design that incorporated a theater, Arnold Robinson, the firm’s planning director said.
Attendees at town-sponsored workshops said they wouldn’t support tenant uses that include allowing a single corporation to move in, “sprawl-oriented” developers, automobile-related uses or “loud rowdy bars,” among others, according to the meeting minutes.
“The study by Newport Collaborative talked about a lot of residential reuse,” Murray said. “But that wasn’t seen as something – from the planning board and town council point of view, and, I believe, the current owners – that anyone was interested in. They were more interested in having the primary use being for industrial purposes.”
Murray’s office has during the last three years drafted regulatory amendments that have included some light commercial use, but nothing has been approved.
In 1952, Tony Guarriello purchased the 13.3-acre parcel to run Palisades Industries – a textiles finishing company – which is now one of the 14 small businesses that occupy 57 percent of the 228,000-square-foot complex, said Bruce Thunberg, the listing real estate agent with Landmark Realty Group LLC and a longtime friend of the Guarriello family.
About 12 years ago Tony’s sons, Gary and Kevin Guarriello, took over the property and business and bought out Tony’s other son, Rocky.
“Now they have other interests, other business ventures that they’re involved with,” Thunberg said.
Thunberg said the complex, at 1080 Kingstown Road, has served as an incubator for small businesses during the family’s ownership.
He said the listing, which is priced at $11.8 million, is attracting interest. •
