R.I. Tool Co., one of Rhode Island’s oldest businesses, plans to dismiss its remaining 62 employees and close its only plant, on West River Street in Providence, next month, a company official said.
The 168-year-old toolmaker in late November gave its employees a 60-day notice of the pending closure, according to Norman Chartier, R.I. Tool’s chief financial officer. The company will sell some of its machinery and its customer list to an undisclosed buyer and likely close early next year, although a date has not been set, Chartier said.
Chartier in a telephone interview declined to discuss the reasons behind the company’s apparent demise. R.I. Tool, which does business under the name Greystone Inc., makes steel forgings, used in hand tools, automobiles and handguns, in its 117,000-square-foot plant.
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The company has applied to the U.S. Department of Labor to receive “Trade Adjustment Assistance,” which extends unemployment benefits for workers who lose their jobs as the result of increased imports. For employees to qualify for the federal benefits – which sometimes include job training, a job-search allowance and health insurance subsidies – the company must be granted certification by the Department of Labor.
The federal assistance “can offer very robust help to workers” if the company can get certified, said George Burke, a special-projects manager at the Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training.
Employees or management from 18 other Rhode Island companies have petitioned the Labor Department this year for extended benefits for displaced workers under the Trade Adjustment Assistance rule, including American Power Conversion and Osram Sylvania. Ten of those petitions were denied, however.
R.I. Tool’s expected closure spotlights the state’s flagging manufacturing sector. The industry has been losing jobs every year since 1984, although manufacturing employment this year has remained steady at about 68,000 jobs, according to labor market information from the DLT’s Web site.
Founded in 1834 as the Providence Tool Co., R.I. Tool is listed as the state’s 13th oldest business in the Providence Business News’s annual list of Rhode Island’s oldest companies. Its president, Everett H. Fernald, could not be reached for comment.
Chartier said the business has been under its current ownership since 1984.
The building, which sets on 6.2 acres, is up for sale by RE/MAX Professional’s commercial group. The building, which was built in 1895, is listed for $1,750,000, according to the RE/MAX Web site.
David Iannuccilli, the broker at RE/MAX Properties in East Greenwich who is marketing the building, said it has been on the market since late November.
He said the property is zoned M-1, industrial, but could also be used as retail, office or even residential space if it was rezoned.
The buyer also could opt to raze the building, which essentially is a hodgepodge of structures that have been added over the years, including a 10,000-square-foot addition built in 1999, Iannuccilli said. He said the property’s location – just west of Interstate 95, south of Branch Avenue – should warrant some interest. There is a Home Depot, a Super Stop & Shop and a post office nearby.
“It’s the highway access and the things around the property that make the land very valuable,” he said.
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