Small businesses out in the cold in Bristol

Many displaced tenants, like Black Duck Marine Canvas, will likely need to leave Bristol

By Christy Nadalin
Posted 1/31/19

For the second time in a month, one of Bristol’s successful small businesses is looking for a home. First, Black Duck Marine Canvas moved across the street. Now they don’t know what to …

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Small businesses out in the cold in Bristol

Many displaced tenants, like Black Duck Marine Canvas, will likely need to leave Bristol

Posted

For the second time in a month, one of Bristol’s successful small businesses is looking for a home. First, Black Duck Marine Canvas moved across the street. Now they don’t know what to do.

“I can’t say I’m surprised,” said Ed Dwyer, a Bristol Industrial Park tenant who owns and operates Black Duck, a custom marine canvas fabricator, along with his business partner, Anne Kachadurian. “I think everyone here saw this coming, we just didn’t see it coming so quickly. I thought we might have a year, maybe more,” he said, of the closure of the Industrial Park.

According to Mr. Dwyer, it has long been obvious to tenants of the Industrial Park that the Mosaico Building & Community Development Corporation (BCDC) had an insurmountable task, bringing these buildings up to code, particularly once the Rhode Island Fire Marshal forced the closure of Building Group One at the end of 2018. “Anyone who has ever rented any space in this compound should have seen this coming.”

Of the nine tenants displaced by the closure of Building Group One, Black Duck was one of only three that intended to remain in the park by moving operations to Building Group Two. Most companies went elsewhere; one, Morgan Marine, a power boat manufacturing interest, closed entirely, selling all their molds and designs to a company in Florida.

It took two weeks for Black Duck to move across the alley to Building Group Two, while simultaneously maintaining scaled-down operations. About two weeks after they were settled into their new space, around Jan. 20, a cold snap hit and a pipe burst. Building maintenance came and shut down their water, saying that they would restore it the next day. Instead, the next day was the day that they and the other occupants of Building Group Two were given verbal notice about the closure of the complex. “We don’t even have water in here; we don’t have a head,” said Mr. Dwyer.

What’s more, for a marine canvas fabricator, moving is not just about moving a few computers and some files — they needed to move hundreds of bolts of heavy fabric as well as the proverbial elephant in the middle of the room: a worktable that measures 40 feet long by about 10 feet wide. And now they need to do it again.

“It’s exhausting. We have already lost 2 weeks of production time,” said Ms. Kachadurian. “Now it looks like we are going to lose more.”

Then there is the matter of finding a new home.

“We would love to find something in Bristol,” said Ms. Kachadurian. “I like being downtown.” That is probably not going to happen. To date they have not been able to find an appropriate space, and have expanded their search outside of town. The price point will be going up significantly as well. “We do realize we will have to pay more rent …,” said Ms. Kachadurian.

“Yeah,” agreed Mr. Dwyer. “But we really don’t want to quadruple it.”

“It’s been a long time coming. They never really put what they should have into it, because they just weren’t getting enough out of it,” said Mr. Dwyer. “They wanted clean businesses in here, like ours, artists, that sort of thing. But the people they want can’t pay the rents they would need to keep this place afloat.”

“Bristol loses a bit,” he added. “I know we’re not huge, but it’s still a hit. And what are they going to do with all this space? Let it rot?”

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A lifelong Portsmouth resident, Jim graduated from Portsmouth High School in 1982 and earned a journalism degree from the University of Rhode Island in 1986. He's worked two different stints at East Bay Newspapers, for a total of 18 years with the company so far. When not running all over town bringing you the news from Portsmouth, Jim listens to lots and lots and lots of music, watches obscure silent films from the '20s and usually has three books going at once. He also loves to cook crazy New Orleans dishes for his wife of 25 years, Michelle, and their two sons, Jake and Max.