Letter: Bristol Council can rescue Industrial Park

Posted 12/7/18

Our newly elected Bristol Town Council faces a critical choice right after its inauguration. This council needs to decide whether to take a long-term economic development view or a short-term view …

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Letter: Bristol Council can rescue Industrial Park

Posted

Our newly elected Bristol Town Council faces a critical choice right after its inauguration. This council needs to decide whether to take a long-term economic development view or a short-term view regarding the Bristol Industrial Plant complex on Wood Street.

There are nine successful small businesses with 30 employees currently operating in Building Group #1; these businesses have been told that they will need to vacate their spaces by Dec. 31. Why is this?

Because the non-profit Mosaico BCDC (Business & Community Development Corporation), the group Bristol’s town council went to in 2010 to take on the massive challenge of turning the blighted site, which was in receivership, into a productive entity for Bristol, is unable, on its own, to pay to complete its fire safety system with sprinklers.
Mosaico has achieved some very significant things while depending entirely on grants and rental income from occupied spaces. They have installed fire safety systems in two of the three buildings as required by the R.I. State Fire Marshal, installed/repaired roofs and windows throughout, completed a Brownfields cleanup while creating new repaved and lined parking lots within the plant areas, etc.

Unfortunately, they were unable to get grant funding for the $300,000 needed to install the fire suppressant equipment in Building Group #1, resulting in the Rhode Island Fire Marshal’s decision to “shut them down.” All businesses in the building must cease operations by Dec. 31.

Why is the newly elected council on the hook for this situation? Because Mosaico went to the “old” council last summer seeking a loan for the monies needed, ONLY IF the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) application was turned down. The council rejected that request. And Mosaico didn’t get the grant. The newly elected council has the opportunity to rectify this most unfortunate decision; there’s still time if it acts quickly.
Short-term thinking says, “don’t put good money after bad” (bad because the very serious challenge given Mosaico eight years ago has not been completely finished?). Long-term thinking recognizes this project was always a decade or longer, knowing it was a very tough challenge from the very beginning. Long-term because there are nine viable, tax-paying businesses providing work for 30 employees and their families.

Does Bristol want them to leave our town, go to Warren or North Carolina or wherever?

Long-term because the last time the centrally-located industrial park closed down, the property became blighted and had a negative impact on the whole of the Wood Street neighborhood, which is just now getting back on its feet. Is this how the Council defines economic development, by indirectly closing these nine businesses?

Please call your councilors and tell them to support Mosaico and the nine businesses by providing Mosaico’s requested funding as it continues along the road to success.

Keith Maloney
Bristol

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