Looking to Quonset for Knowledge

A CERTAIN PLAN: QDC Executive Director Steven King believes that establishing simple rules to access the I-195 land will help redevelopment happen there. / PBN PHOTO/BRIAN MCDONALD
A CERTAIN PLAN: QDC Executive Director Steven King believes that establishing simple rules to access the I-195 land will help redevelopment happen there. / PBN PHOTO/BRIAN MCDONALD

Differences between Quonset Business Park in North Kingstown and the former Interstate 195 land in Providence are easy to find. For starters, unlike the elevated highway, most Rhode Islanders didn’t want to see the Navy go.
But there are also clear similarities between the two areas: both include prime real estate that passed from federal to state ownership, and both are seen as potential regional job generators.
Now with Quonset being considered one of Rhode Island’s bigger economic success stories, the commission charged with redeveloping the vacated Iway parcels is hoping to learn from the two-plus decades of work that went into building Quonset.
“Since they formed the [Quonset Development Corporation], it has been a great success story,” said Colin Kane, chairman of the I-195 District Commission. “My schedule has been clobbered, but I have it on my list to sit down with [QDC Executive Director] Steven King and talk about the lessons learned from Quonset.”
At the top of the things Kane sees translating from the bayside suburban expanse of the former Navy base to Providence’s proposed “Knowledge District” is a streamlined and expedited permitting system that Quonset has put in place with North Kingstown.
The system means that before they start talking with interested companies about a parcel in the park, Quonset officials lay out a basic pre-permitted building footprint that a prospective buyer could begin work on within 90 days.
“They have taken on the responsibility, as would a private developer, of bringing the permitting to a certain state, so when someone comes in, a lot of the regulatory guesswork has already been completed by Quonset,” Kane said.
The I-195 land’s location tucked within an active, urban environment makes it unlikely the Knowledge District will have the same level of permitting flexibility Quonset enjoys in North Kingstown, but there is expected to be some streamlining.
Another similarity between the redevelopment of the Knowledge District and Quonset is the sizable public infrastructure investment needed to transform them into productive areas for business.
The investment in Quonset over the years includes more than $100 million in federal funding, including a $22.3 million TIGER stimulus grant, while moving I-195 already has cost $623 million in state and federal funds. A major difference between the two areas is that at Quonset transportation infrastructure – including direct multilane highway, rail, air and deep-draft sea access – represent the park’s most significant advantage over other business and industrial areas.
In the Knowledge District, the major I-195 infrastructure investments mostly focus on restoring an urban street grid that had been interrupted by the construction of the expressway.
“The difference is that this is essentially a business compound,” said King during a recent interview on a quiet lot in the park where traffic remained minimal despite the full parking spaces in front of many buildings. “If you ask many of the business owners, they’ll tell you they like being set apart in an area just for business,” King said.
That’s not supposed to be the idea in the Knowledge District, where planners have made connecting the I-195 land to the community and making it a vibrant urban environment a major element of the redevelopment effort.
“All of us believe the Knowledge District isn’t just buildings that go empty at 6 p.m. at night,” Kane said. “But that the lands that we control are catalysts for further life in the city and urban core: housing, restaurants, public spaces and parks. We hope that we build a platform for an 18-hour city, and we enjoy the place.”
The other overwhelming difference between Quonset and the I-195 land is size: Quonset includes 3,207 total acres, 1,412 developable, while the area under I-195 Commission control includes just 35 developable acres.
In the end, the measure of both areas’ success is likely to be the number of people working there.
Quonset now has 8,800 jobs at 168 companies in the park, a number which should grow in 2012 as a result of Electric Boat’s plans to hire 500 new workers there over the next two years.
King said he also sees opportunities in expanding even further the volume of auto imports and shipping traffic at the port when capital improvements from the stimulus grant, including a new mobile crane, are in place. A new sports complex in the Gateway district of Quonset is expected to bring more permanent workers when it opens in August. Of course, state officials charting the course of Quonset over the years haven’t jumped at every idea for job creation that has been floated.
A decade ago, a major debate emerged over whether the park should refocus on attracting cargo shipping and invest in a massive expansion of the facilities at the Port of Davisville.
The plan was eventually killed by then Gov. Donald L. Carcieri, and Quonset focused on filling out the interior lots of the park while making smaller, more gradual improvements to the port.
With Electric Boat expanding, automobile landings to the North Atlantic Distribution Inc. vehicle-finishing center quadrupling since 1996 and only 354 acres, around 25 percent, of the developable acreage still vacant, the current course is looking pretty good.
“We didn’t believe there was the demand,” King said about the cargo-terminal expansion.
Concerns about building a white elephant appear to be resurfacing at Quonset now that at least one state lawmaker has suggested building a waterfront resort casino, served by cruise ships, in the park.
King said his concern was with whether the concept as it was described would conflict with existing activity. Based on the preliminary sketch of where a casino would go, King said it would appear to displace some of the Norad car lots.
Asked what advice he could provide for the I-195 Commission as it begins the long process of building the Knowledge District, King said creating a strong and stable organization was important as well as establishing and codifying the rules of the land to give businesses certainty.
Back in Providence, the I-195 Commission has made working with the city on changes to the zoning of the former I-Way land one of its top priorities, so that companies will see some of the permitting certainty they enjoy at Quonset.
The other thing Kane is reminded of every time he drives by Quonset is the number of years it took to turn the area from a desolate, former military base to a bustling park.
“I think the key is we are going to have to work very hard and it didn’t happen overnight; it took a lot of work,” Kane said. •

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