News

RHODE ISLAND'S HOUSING MARKET continues to recover, according to the Rhode Island Association of Realtors, with significant increases in median home price and sales for single-family homes in May.

15-Year Tax Stabilization Agreement approved by City Council. By John Howell Sometimes all it takes is a little extra boost to get across the goal line. Michael D’Ambra believes the action the City Council took Monday night could be just what’s needed to bring a Hyatt Hotel to Warwick City Centre. The hotel would be the first step to a multi-use development D’Ambra proposed for eight acres on Jefferson Boulevard more than seven years ago. But then the economy took a nosedive, and the proposal for 540,000 square feet of office and retail space and a hotel never went any further than gaining the required city approvals. It’s not that D’Ambra, the president of D’Ambra Construction, hasn’t tried to find prospective tenants or prepared for the day when work would begin. The asphalt plant once located on the site has been relocated to Johnston, although offices for the company that specializes in sewer and road construction is still on the site adjacent to the Interlink and the commuter rail station. It’s on that northerly end of the property where D’Ambra plans to build a 120-room hotel with a skywalk connecting it to the Interlink and Green Airport. The boost that quite possibly will take the project from the drawing boards to financing and construction is the tax stabilization agreement (TSA) unanimously approved by the City Council. Under the agreement applying to the 111 acres of the City Centre intermodal zone, new developments of $5 million or more would have the increased appraisals of the property phased in over 15 years. During the first five years the “base” appraisal of the property as set before new construction would be locked in. Over the next 10 years, the new and higher value of the property would be phased in at the rate of 10 percent a year. Under the current commercial tax rate, the TSA would generate a tax savings to the property owner of almost $1.5 million for each $5 million of new development over 15 years. TSAs would be approved by the city tax assessor and would apply to new development only. “It’s certainly going to make it easier,” D’Ambra said when asked what the TSA could mean for him.

Arooga’s Grille House & Sports Bar has prided itself on standing out within the industry, and now they are doing the same in Rhode Island. Arooga’s first opened in July of 2008 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and now has 10 locations throughout that state. The company began franchising in 2014. Arooga’s signed a franchise agreement with the Mohegan Holding Company, run by the Mohegan Tribe, in May 2014 to bring 15 of the restaurants to New England; their first opened last year adjacent to Mohegan Sun. The Warwick location, on Greenwich Avenue, is their second, which opened on Tuesday, April 19.

WARWICK – A standardized tax stabilization agreement that could attract developers to the largely untouched City Centre Warwick district has the support of the city’s leaders, according to an announcement Wednesday.