An overhaul of the public agency overseeing development at the Quonset Davisville
Port and Commerce Park is complete, following the governor’s approval.
Renamed the Quonset Development Corporation, the stand-alone, quasi-public agency officially separated from its parent agency, the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation, on July 12. Looking to further put a professional face on the developing commerce park, a deal announced in late June will have commercial real estate firm C.B. Richard Ellis aggressively marketing land in the 750-acre park.
“In effect, we’re taking the ‘for sale by owner’ sign off the front and putting a ‘for sale by professional’ sign up,” said Geoff Grout, managing director of the Quonset corporation.
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Senator J. Michael Lenihan, an East Greenwich Democrat who sits on the Quonset board, said C.B. Richard Ellis brings both a national and international perspective in helping to understand where Quonset fits into the marketplace and will be able to sell the site on its natural strengths. Lenihan, whose district also covers parts of North Kingstown and Warwick, described the marketing efforts as recently as three to four years ago as “laughable.”
“It was about as non-professional as you could imagine,” said Lenihan, mentioning blind sales mailings of 10,000 postcards that were then never followed up on.
He said the park needs to expand its scope – instead of devoting time and resources coaxing companies to move from East Greenwich, the park needs to appeal to the international and national companies who could arrive with the “growing, dynamic business and jobs with attractive salaries and benefits” that Rhode Island covets.
Charles Francis, president and partner of C.B. Richard Ellis’ 12-employee Providence operation, which signed a three-year deal with Quonset following a bid process, said he’s not yet ready to issue a timetable for when the revamped marketing plan will be rolled out. Francis said the effort will be coordinated with the international firm’s Boston offices and the first step of putting together an action plan – completing a SWOT plan analyzing the property’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats – has already begun.
“The execution will be a great challenge,” Francis said. “And we don’t get any money until we execute. There’s been a lot of great activity going on in Quonset and there’s a lot more to be done.”
Procedurally, Grout said the process for a company looking to move into Quonset will remain the same, in that the leasing or selling of any land will still have to be approved by a revamped board. The new board of the Quonset Development Corporation will contain 11 members – six appointed by the governor, two appointed by the North Kingstown Town Council and one each appointed by the East Greenwich and Jamestown town councils. The eleventh member will remain the executive director of the state Economic Development Corporation, who will only cast tie-breaking votes. General Assembly members, who once sat on the board as non-voting members if any part of their district fell in North Kingstown, will no longer be part of the board.
A company looking to expand could still go directly to the board, but Grout said C.B. Richard Ellis would likely be asked to review the price points of any deal. After years of selling land below market rate, Grout said land in the park was re-priced at the close of 2003.
Under the contract, which Francis said is cancelable at certain times if either side is unhappy with the progress being made, the real estate firm will take a 5 percent commission on up to $5 million in sales. Anything over that figure and the firm will take a 4.5 percent commission.
Francis said the firm is “very bullish” about Quonset’s potential. For the next year, the contract also includes a $100,000 marketing budget, which Francis said the firm is still deciding the most effective way to spend – though his expectations are for a “hard-hitting, focused approach.”
Asked how he will measure the success of the firm’s efforts, Francis said: “You can look now at the last 20 years and see the changes that have already occurred in Quonset. … Three years from now, you want to see more jobs. If we’ve accomplished our mission, bottom line is that our success will be measured by job creation.”
Lenihan said the Quonset agency will also be asked to comply to the strict accounting and reporting procedures outlined for publicly traded companies in the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation.
He said the key now is direct marketing of the land with the same professionalism, knowing that the kind of companies the state wants to attract will be looking for real estate that appeals financially and physically. Two weeks into the deal with C.B. Richard Ellis, he said the board is already considering expansion of the 20-acre “gateway area” at the park’s entrance where extensive landscaping is eventually planned.
What Lenihan hopes to see out of the arrangement is the transition from a business park that’s a “a development in progress,” to a park that’s “well on its way to completion.”
