PROVIDENCE – City officials have waived the tax-exempt status of the Lederer Theater Center, home to the Trinity Repertory Company, which will allow the nonprofit to apply for state tax credits on future upgrades to the property.
Approved after a unanimous roll call vote during the Sept. 7 meeting of the Providence City Council per a request by Mayor Brett P. Smiley, Trinity entered into a five-year agreement with the city to pay $10,000 in yearly property taxes.
A spokesperson for Smiley, Josh Estrella, confirmed Monday that Trinity representatives had requested the waiver, but he did not have more details on planned renovations to the Lederer Theater Center.
Multiple requests for comment to Trinity Rep were not returned.
Managed by the R.I. Historic Preservation & Heritage Commission and the R.I. Division of Taxation, the program was set to expire in 2023. Gov. Daniel J. McKee in June signed legislation extending the credit’s sunset date to June 30, 2024.
The credits equal 25% of the cost of approved rehabilitation work. Owners must “substantially” rehabilitate an historic building, meaning the cost of the project must exceed the value of the building.
Before the council vote, Senior Deputy Majority Leader John Goncalves praised the agreement with the historic theater.
“This is an important institution,” he said. “It’s really going to have an incredible effect on downtown Providence, just in terms in the way that it revitalizes our space and the theater scene.”
According to the resolution, an act passed by the General Assembly in 1979 exempted Trinity from state and municipal taxes, which could be “waived in whole or in part” by the city.
A 2018 study entitled “Historic Preservation: an overlooked economic driver,” claimed that every $1 the state invests in a tax credit project generates $10.53 of economic activity, noting that 326 historic buildings attracted more than $1.4 billion in investment that qualified for the credits since 2001.
RIHPHC Executive Director Jeffrey Emidy confirmed that other nonprofits in the state had received state preservation tax credits in the past.
Asked whether there has been more interest in nonprofits seeking to amend their tax status to qualify for credits and whether it could have any effect on funding, Emidy referred questions to R.I. Department of Revenue’s Chief Revenue Agent Donna Dube, who did not respond to requests for comment.
However, the department’s website notes that while it is currently “accepting applications for a place in the queue for tax credit allocations … tax credit funds are limited at this time.”
The HTC is capped at $5 million per project with an aggregate cap determined by the taxation division. The total cap for fiscal 2022 was $28 million.
The commission is scheduled to meet Sept. 13. On the agenda is a discussion of “Trinity Repertory Theater addition,” though additional details were not listed.
The theater received a $500,000 federal earmark in 2022 toward exterior renovations.
The website of Boston-based Flansburgh Architects lists a renovation project for Trinity currently in design, proposing upgrades such as replacing Chace Theatre “with a flexible space with flat floor and moveable seating risers” and “a transparent new addition [to] add a new elevator and offices and strengthen the identity of Trinity Rep from the street.”
Emidy said any qualifying project must meet an “adjusted basis” expenditure threshold, computed by metrics such as property and land value, depreciation and past improvements.
The total value of the Lederer Theater Center was most recently assessed at $7.1 million, according to the city’s tax assessor’s records. The building itself was assessed at $6.5 million.
(Update: Clarifies tax credit for Lederer Theater Center upgrades throughout)
Christopher Allen is a PBN staff writer. You may contact him at Allen@PBN.com
