NORTH KINGSTOWN – Quonset Development Corporation has partnered with a developer to build the first of what could be more than a dozen buildings with flexible office space for startups and small businesses in Quonset Business Park.
The Carr Group of Narragansett, led by Principal Robert Carr, has agreed to build the initial 9,000 square-foot building on 3.13 acres in the mixed-use Quonset Gateway section of the park and lease it back to QDC for six years.
At the end of the six-year lease, the quasi-public QDC will have paid back the construction costs, plus a $150,000 development fee, and will own the building, said Quonset Executive Director Steven King.
The building is projected to cost $1.2 million plus interest, resulting in annual lease payments of $240,000. Quonset expects to cover the lease payments with rental income from business tenants of the building.
The single-story “incubator” building will have movable walls so spaces can be tailored to accommodate everything from single-person operations to growing small companies.
In addition to the initial building, QDC has 12 other sites in the Gateway area on which it is ready to build similar buildings if the first fills up.
“It provides some higher and denser uses as the park matures,” King said about building flexible office space in Quonset. “And it is responding to demand for this kind of space – for growing small businesses hope that we hope will grow out of the space and move somewhere else in the park.”
Quonset Gateway is a mixed-use section of the park with shops, a hotel and sports center.
The QDC Board of Directors approved the public-private partnership Sept. 17.
King said Monday that construction could begin as soon as next week and the building could open as early as next June.
In other Quonset Business Park news, the Wide World of Indoor Sports will celebrate its grand opening on Wednesday, welcoming Lt. Gov. Elizabeth H. Roberts and local political leaders at the 92,000-square-foot facility.
