Visitors — even longtime Rhode Islanders — are often shocked to find that there’s a lot more to Pawtucket than old, vacant mill buildings, or even the historic Slater Mill.
“That’s one of the problems we have in Pawtucket,” is the rueful analysis of John J. Partridge, co-director along with Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. of the newly organized Pawtucket Foundation. “People get shocked.”
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Because there’s a lot to know about this important industrial city strategically founded in 1671 at the falls of the Blackstone River and the upper tidewaters of Narragansett Bay.
Not only is there Slater Mill and a modern, clean and colorful tourism center, there’s also a burgeoning arts district with world renowned artists, as well as, Partridge said, a great and vibrant “community spirit.”
That’s why, according to Partridge and Sullivan, the time is now ripe for the Pawtucket Foundation, a private sector nonprofit group started in June to jump-start an economic and cultural renaissance in Pawtucket, particularly in areas near the Blackstone River and the city’s downtown and gateway areas near Route 95.
With the motto “a strong public-private sector partnership is needed for positive change,” Partridge, a Pawtucket native and founder of the Providence law firm Partridge Snow & Hahn, said the Pawtucket Foundation will serve as the voice of business in city development.
It will focus, he said, on areas like manufacturing, service industries, retail, medical services, arts and entertainment, finance, advertising and graphic arts and tourism.
“They’ve done a lot,” Sullivan said, of the city’s work over the last several years in identifying areas in need of revitalization. “The main thing now is getting it done.”
In less than five months the Pawtucket Foundation has hit a lively nerve, amassing pledges from more than 40 local businesses, totaling more than $300,000 over the next three years, enough to pay normal overhead costs and hire an executive director and CEO. (By early November they’d gotten 29 resumes for the job, from all over New England and the Midwest and as far west as California and as far south as Texas – even an applicant from Winnipeg, Canada.)
Contributing businesses range from the small to the large, from utilities like Narragansett Electric and Valley Resources to Fleet Bank, Excellent Coffee Co., Central Falls Credit Union, Teknor Apex and The China Inn.
To Sullivan, president and CEO of the Pawtucket-based Colette Travel Services, the vigor of the contributions in so short a time illustrates how much the private sector in Pawtucket cares about the city’s future.
“I am very excited about not only the donations we have gotten from the business community but also for the enthusiasm they have shown about getting involved with this project,” Sullivan said.
Modeled on the very successful Providence Foundation and the “tremendous contribution” it’s made to the rebirth of downtown Providence, Partridge said the Pawtucket Foundation will work with city government and other groups to create an environment in Pawtucket that’s conducive for sustained investment.
And because the foundation is completely nonpolitical, Partridge said, they will be able to stay behind the scenes and not have their fate determined by whoever is in office.
The restoration climate is ripe these days in terms of federal and state grants, Sullivan said, so there’s no better time economically or socially for family and business investors to look at Pawtucket, especially with the phenomenal success being reaped just a few miles south.
“It’s very much playing off what’s happening in Providence,” Partridge said, and frankly, drumming up support for Pawtucket hasn’t been that hard, since from its irreplaceable architecture to its river and access to Amtrak, “you’ve just got a lot of good things to talk to people about.”
“Pawtucket from every angle has a great opportunity,” Sullivan agreed, adding that sometimes the charm and beauty of this 18th-century city can even get overlooked by the folks who live there, who sometimes take its “history and flavor” for granted.
Praising what could be the foundation’s vital role in creating “the new Pawtucket,” Mayor James E. Doyle, who serves in an ex-officio capacity, said that because Pawtucket is a gateway to Rhode Island, it has a unique opportunity to participate in the booming economic growth of the Greater Boston region, particularly south of the Route 128 belt.
“The people who work in Boston want to work here,” Sullivan agreed. “They just don’t know it yet.”
Doyle also credited the city’s “excellent buildings such as the Pawtucket Armory and old factory structures near the Blackstone River that could be revitalized to serve emerging businesses” and said there are people in Pawtucket “eagerly looking for better paying jobs to help provide a wonderful labor pool for growth companies.”
Michael D. Cassidy, director of planning & development in Pawtucket, said Pawtucket’s Riverfront Plan completed in 1997 and the recent plan for Downtown identify generic and specific development goals, from creating Riverfront zoning to developing a riverfront hotel and restoring for use the large vacant Parkin Yarn building.
Because of that building’s “very prominent” spot opposite the Registry of Motor Vehicles, visitors often think vacant mills are what the city’s all about. “So it sets a tone that is not accurate.”
