Grow Smart RI: use state’s assets to lure smaller businesses

Incentive to rehab buildings

Wendy Natt, Apr 02, 09.

Grow Smart Rhode Island (GSRI) is proposing that the state shift its economic development strategy toward recruitment of small- to medium-sized companies that are interested in walkable, transit-connected communities and away from the old strategy of bringing in mostly large companies that demand huge amounts of space in car-dependent, undeveloped areas, says a Smart Growth News story.

Most of Rhode Island’s new companies with high wage jobs are established in rehabilitated buildings in towns and urban centers, says a GSRI press release, with a number of them located in historic mill buildings, which are common asset in the state. According to the group, “Historic, funky, and vibrant neighborhoods” are major attractors for “the next generation of knowledge economy workers who want to live in a safe, walkable neighborhood where they have easy access to cafes, grocery stores, services, schools, churches, bike paths and parks.’’

GSRI released a candidates’ briefing book to the governor, lawmakers and the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation (RIEDC), in which it emphasizes the need to work with municipalities to provide historic investment redevelopment incentives.

(Photo credit: herzogbr)