The Urban Revitalization Fund of Rhode Island (TURF) is a community development financial institution organized to address the state’s stock of “distressed” real estate.
PBN: What does “distressed” real estate mean?
SAUL: Distressed would mean a blighted, abandoned, vacant, derelict commercial property. The areas that we would focus on would be most of Providence with the exception of the East Side, Central Falls, Pawtucket, parts of East Providence, parts of Johnston, parts of Cranston, Woonsocket – anywhere, essentially, by Census tract, it’s a low to moderate income.
PBN: What kind of properties do you consider?
SAUL: The large vacant mill buildings, typically we would leave to the large private developers. Our typical project is usually a half-million to $1 million project. It can be a small, mixed-use property on a city street that might have 4,000 square feet of commercial space with two or three housing units above to a 20,000-square-foot building. Again, in the targeted area that would be slated for some type of redevelopment.
PBN: Does TURF go looking for locations or do people bring properties to you?
SAUL: A little of both. TURF is an organization with a strong collaboration of entities that are active in revitalizing Rhode Island’s distressed neighborhoods. For example, you have banks that are active, economic policy council that’s active, so what we were hoping when we pulled the organization together was through that collaboration there was a natural intersect of information. Using that information, we can hopefully make investments that have the greatest strategic impact.
PBN: Have any properties been funded yet?
SAUL: We provided a bridge loan to a loan partnership called Paragon Mills, which is essentially the nonprofit Puente (a real estate and community development group in Olneyville), where they are looking to develop a property at 60 Valley St., adjacent to the Rising Sun Mills. Our loan was used to help them acquire another adjacent property, an old plating company, in the very early pre-development stages of that project, where no bank financing had been arranged and they needed to move on that property quickly. The property allowed them 120 parking spaces, which were needed to develop 60 Valley St.
PBN: In the grand plan of urban renewal, where is TURF?
SAUL: We have ongoing discussions with the Arts Exchange, which is doing the redevelopment of the Armory. Our role might be providing some gap financing in between funding from tax credits to keep the project going. Another example of a project is we’re working with the South Providence Development Corporation in helping them acquire 150 Colfax St., which is the office of Omni Development. South Providence’s subsidiary, Cleanscape, a waste removal company, is operating out of the Omni building and they’re looking to acquire it – and Omni is looking to sell it. We’ve arranged a loan through Providence Economic Partnership and the Economic Development Corporation financing to help them provide that loan. Those are examples of up and running businesses where we can step in. We only do commercial real estate. We will consider mixed-use. Our client base is the community development corporations, the nonprofits, the CDCs, also the for-profit developers – typically urban developers. … The other definition is developers oftentimes come out of the community – where there are people looking to do things within the community and they haven’t been well-received by the banks. The last category of customer would be a business that is operating in one of these urban communities where they’re looking to acquire a piece of property and stay in the neighborhood or they’re looking to add onto the property they currently own and operate out of. The idea from our perspective is we’re very interested in revitalizing real estate in these neighborhoods and keeping and creating as many jobs as we can.
PBN: Why does Rhode Island seem like a good place to do these projects?
SAUL: I think we have a fair amount of stock – a fair amount of inventory that needs adaptive reuse. The second is there seems to be a lot of interest in Providence for lots of reasons – quality of place, convenience to an 8-million person market, and many of these neighborhoods are seeing lots of interest from Massachusetts companies and residents. If you were to talk to people in Woonsocket and Pawtucket, you’d learn a number of companies are looking to rent or own there because the cost per square foot is so much less than it is in Boston.
PBN: Who is your ideal loan recipient?
SAUL: It would be a community development corporation that is looking to get either a mixed-use property or a straight commercial property. Many of them are beginning to move in the direction of mixed use – so the CDCs are active in this market, presumably because the last piece of a neighborhood to get revitalized is that blighted building. By default, they need to do something. The other typical customer would be the urban developer that would come in and see neighborhoods in which they want to get involved for economic reasons.
