Capital Properties profit falls 77% in 1Q before new contract in effect

EAST PROVIDENCE – Capital Properties Inc. reported first-quarter net income of $77,000, or 1 cent per share, a 77.4 percent decline from the $340,000, or 5 cents per share, recorded during the same period a year earlier.

Total revenue fell 18.4 percent during the three months ended March 31, dropping to $1.68 million from $2.06 million in the first quarter of 2013.

Capital Properties owns a substantial portion of the Capital Center area of Providence and derives leasing income from tenants that have built commercial and residential buildings on the land, including the headquarters of Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island, the Waterplace condominiums and the Capitol Cove apartments, among other properties.

Revenue from that portion of its holdings increased in the first quarter to $1.11 million from $1.06 million during the same three-month period last year.

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The other half of the company’s business comprises a petroleum storage facility in East Providence and an offloading pier in Narragansett Bay. From May 1998 through April 2013, Capital Properties operated the facility on behalf of Global Companies LLC, but when the agreement came to an end, the 1.04 million shell barrels of capacity became empty.

Beginning Sept. 1, 2013, the company entered into an eight-month agreement with Atlantic Trading & Marketing Inc. to use roughly 44 percent of the storage capacity, bringing in revenue of $572,000 for Capital Properties during the first quarter, down from $999,000 the previous year.

Last month, Capital Properties announced that it had reached a deal with Portsmouth, N.H.-based Sprague Operating Resources LLC to rent the petroleum facility for $3.5 million annually. Sprague’s tenancy began May 1, the day after ATMI’s contract expired, and the company will occupy 100 percent of the facility’s storage capacity.

Todd D. Turcotte, vice president of Capital Properties, had previously said the agreement with Sprague will have a definite positive impact on the company’s bottom line going forward.

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