WOONSOCKET
- There will be no MED zone near Park
Square.
That also means the proposed massive Dowling Village
on Eddie Dowling Highway
is reduced by a third in scale.
Succumbing
to pressures from many sides, Mayor Susan D. Menard and Brian A. Bucci of
Bucci Development Corp., Warwick, officially announced Thursday their
termination of a deal to bring 250,000-square-feet of big box retail stores
to the city via a Municipal Economic Development (MED) zone.
The concept was to have Woonsocket take advantage of controversial
state legislation for a few "depressed" cities by reducing sales
tax on goods in half to 3½ percent - all of it going to the needy city.
Over 10 years, Menard estimated a potential windfall of $30 million. That
spurred agreement with Bucci 13 months ago, linked to initial approval in North Smithfield for the bulk of an envisioned 700,000
square feet of commercial space plus 76 condos in four phases.
With an "amicable" separation, Bucci signed an agreement Wednesday
night and Menard late yesterday afternoon, bringing to a close what had been
privately talked about since December. The mayor's press release cited
"the number of legal, procedural and political obstacles that
implementation of the MED zone/Dowling
Village project now
faced and the substantial delays that would result from these legal
issues."
They jointly expressed "deep disappointment," while maintaining the
city would provide water to the envisioned 138-acre project in adjacent North Smithfield.
Specifically, according to Menard's spokesman, Joel D. Mathews, city director
of planning and development, city officials needed to overcome state planning
officials, the General Assembly, the courts and a mushrooming citizens action group, all bent on making the MED zone
history.
"There were just too many legal obstacles. Maybe at the end of the day,
it was chewing up too much time and effectively affected our ability to do
it," Mathews said.
Even if the city could scale the obstacles, it might take years to win out,
he said.
Reaction to the announcement that officials had privately predicted the past
few months was also predictable.
"I'm delighted Mayor Menard cancelled her agreement with Bucci,"
said Caroly Shumway, head of the Valley Alliance for Smart Growth, which
claims 750 supporters and has battled Dowling Village
at town meetings and through several lawsuits.
What it means, said Shumway as she e-mailed members last night, was they
"stopped" a third of the project. "I'm pretty happy
actually," she said, adding, "We still have battles on the North Smithfield side."
One they won't need to battle is a Bucci appeal on Tuesday before the North
Smithfield Zoning Board of Review over the Planning Board in October denying
4-0 an amended master plan to link nearly 30 acres and 250,000 square feet of
retail space in Woonsocket to the North Smithfield project.
That's no longer relevant, officials said.
But the Valley Alliance plans to fight Monday night whether the North
Smithfield Town Council includes provisions to its comprehensive plan favorable to Dowling
Village; later, on
Thursday, they'll participate in a Bucci counter-lawsuit in Superior Court.
A hearing had been scheduled yesterday on Bucci Development's request that
the court prevent the town from changing or revoking the project's approvals
from planning and zoning officials, and was continued to next week to await
council action on the comprehensive plan, said attorney Michael A. Kelly,
representing Bucci.
The parties will wait to see if any Town Council amendments to the plan are
made with respect to the recommended zoning for the Dowling Village
property.
Shumway said her group is also awaiting the results of four bills being
prepared for General Assembly consideration to amend the MED zone legislation
before putting the Woonsocket
issue to rest.
Among the proposed amendments includes one co-sponsored by Woonsocket Rep.
Roger A. Picard proposing the 7 percent sales collected tax be reduced to 5
percent in MED zones, divided equally between the distressed city and the
state.
Effectively, said Mathews, noting Woonsocket's
proximity to the Massachusetts
border and its 5 percent sales tax, "it probably takes the incentive out
of the MED zone."
What's still on the table?
Mathews said Menard's previously announced effort to re-develop the Hamlet Avenue
area mills through MED zone advantages remained plausible. The financial
benefits, however, could never come close to what a major retail area near Park Square and
anticipated tax breaks might have generated, he said.
To Bucci's attorney K. Joseph Shekarchi,
the end of this deal is a two-sided coin: "I don't necessarily think
we're disappointed at all with the results," Shekarchi
said last night.
"There's a roughly 36 percent elimination with the Woonsocket portion... The traffic and
infrastructure component is reduced by one third, and all the revenues go to North Smithfield," he said, calling the change to
what had been the original project a "silver lining" for skeptical citizens and officials.
He said Kelly would likely withdraw the zoning board appeal.
With the MED zone out of the way, Bucci will seek the next stage of approval
from the North Smithfield Planning Board on Phase I, probably next month,
said Town Planner Michael A. Phillips, who received their revised plan last
week.
The first phase calls for three buildings totaling
only 23,000 square feet on 4½ acres behind the Roast House and the
Rehabilitation Hospital of Rhode Island, with 124 parking spaces.
The plan calls for a 15,000 square-foot pharmacy, a 4,000 square-foot
restaurant and another retail building of 3,200 to 4,000 square feet. Shekarchi declined to confirm any of the tenants, but
representatives of Walgreens have been assessing the pharmacy property,
according to town sources.
On the original master plan that the Planning Board approved in July 2004,
Phase I consisted of seven buildings and 71,000 square feet, nearly three
times as large.
Asked if Bucci was scaling back the project, Shekarchi
said, "absolutely not.... It just means that's what we have the tenants
for."
While Phase II and Phase III call for nearly 300,000 square each of retail
and retail/office space, the only time table Shekarchi
would give for when those portions could begin was after Phase I was
completed.
According to North Smithfield Town Administrator Robert B. Lowe, the annual
tax revenues from a completed Dowling
Village would be in the
range of $1.2-1.3 million. Lowe said he and Town Council Vice Chairwoman
Melissa Flaherty met with Shekarchi and Brian Bucci
on Saturday to discuss what the town might expect and review environmental
concerns involving drainage runoff.
He said the Dowling Village officials told them to expect the Woonsocket separation
agreement in the next week or so.
Mathews, meanwhile, maintained the project had been worthwhile for the city
to pursue under a MED zone component. He emphasized it would have brought
commercial businesses and jobs; enhanced local shopping; would have brought
"big time" financial benefits in the short term; over the longer
term, the real estate tax revenues would have helped maintain a stable tax
rate.
"It was a very good project for the city in its entirety," he said,
noting all local officials supported it.
Certainly, the Department of Administration's Statewide
Planning Program (SPP) decision in September to indefinitely reverse the
city's comprehensive plan amendment designating the Park Square MED zone was
the initial nail in the coffin, he said.
With complaints from local and state officials, Valley Alliance business
owners and others, the state questioned more closely the MED zone's alleged
unfair competition and whether Park
Square should have qualified as a depressed
area. Mathews said those were difficult issues to fight both politically and
legally, while indicating the arguments contained substance.
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