Commerce RI approves $4M in incentives for 3 Providence projects

PROVIDENCE — An Attleboro company that specializes in demographic analysis for retail locations will relocate to downtown Providence, bringing with it 28 jobs. The move will qualify for $500,000 in state Qualified Jobs Incentive Tax Credits, as approved Monday by the R.I. Commerce Corp. board.
Trade Area Systems Inc., which has 20 employees, plans to create eight more jobs following its move. The estimated median salary of the jobs is $74,000, according to a Commerce RI analysis, well above the state and city’s median.
The company produces a software suite, called TAS Unity, that evaluates the demographics of targeted areas around potential retail locations. It is used by six of the top 45 retailers in the U.S., according to company President and CEO Joe Rando, who attended the Commerce RI meeting Monday.
The move to Providence was driven less by the state incentives than his desire to move to a location that will ease his recruitment of highly skilled young professionals, Rando said, following the meeting. The company, which owns a suburban-based Class B office condo, competes with New York-, Silicon Valley- and Boston-based companies for the tech talent, he said, but found moving to Boston would not be feasible.
“Looking at Providence, it was close,” he said. “It didn’t hurt you were voted the ‘coolest city’ in America.”
The job-creation tax credits, which are paid over a five-year span after the jobs have been filled, are expected to total $106,613 annually, or a cumulative total of $521,507.
The state expects to collect a net increase of $135,00 in income taxes from the new positions over six years, as well as $11 million in gross domestic production attributed to the relocation, according to Commerce RI.
The move is anticipated to cost the company about $1 million, so the state incentives will allow the company to recoup about half of its relocations costs, Rando said.
He hasn’t signed a lease for the company headquarters as yet, but has signed a non-binding letter of intent to move into the Omni Providence Hotel, which has several floors of office space. The company will need about a half-floor of space, Rando said. It is looking at an unoccupied floor.
In Attleboro, the company owns its property, at 555 Pleasant St., and will either sell or lease the commercial condominium.
Gov. Gina M. Raimondo, who presided over the meeting, said the company will import high-wage, high skill jobs of the type Rhode Island is trying to expand. “It’s a great thing when companies leave Massachusetts to come to Rhode Island,” she said.
In other actions, the Commerce RI board authorized up to $2.2 million in Rebuild Rhode Island tax credits for a conversion of an empty office building at 68-76 Dorrance St. in downtown Providence to micro-loft apartments. The project is being pursued by Case Mead Association LLC, a company managed by former Providence Mayor Joseph R. Paolino Jr. The 44 residential micro lofts, construction of a second egress and renovation of the exterior of the building is expected to total $7.7 million.
The board also approved up to $1.2 million in Rebuild Rhode Island tax credits for the conversion of the Russell & Irons Building at 95 Chestnut St. to market-rate apartments. The building, which adjoins the I-195 Redevelopment District, will accommodate 56 apartments as well as a ground-level restaurant. The applicant, Waldorf Capital Management LLC, expects the renovation will cost $17 million.
The Rebuild Rhode Island tax credits are payable only after projects receive occupancy permits.

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