Aug. 17--WARWICK -- Airport noise and expansion will always be troublesome issues here, but there are days when City Hall enjoys the upside of having an airport in the heart of the community.
There was one of those days this spring, when Joseph Piscopio opened his new Hilton Garden Inn on Jefferson Boulevard.
There will be another next month, when Michael Integlia & Company opens the first of two office buildings at Jefferson Gateway at the Airport, a $24-million development on Jefferson Boulevard just south of the Airport Connector.
The office buildings could generate as much in property taxes as 100 houses, while demanding only a fraction of the public services that families need.
Tax Collector Ken Mallette said yesterday that growth through new construction, mainly commercial, was "a little low" last year at $22 million, just 1 percent of the city's tax base. But, he said, "I anticipate a better year coming up. There's a lot of substantial development going on."
Mayor Scott Avedisian said, "We're seeing growth in every part of the city this year, and most of it is commercial."
Developers at Pontiac Mills, on the Pawtuxet River off Route 5, have obtained final approval to build a hotel and offices, the first phase in a $40-million redevelopment of the historic mill.
Carpionato Properties recently cleared the Apex site on Route 5 to make way for a Lowe's Home Improvement store, and is trying to buy state land next door to build a supermarket and retail stores.
"We just broke ground for the Wave Federal Credit Union across from the Apex site," Avedisian said. "The private investment that's going on in the community here is phenomenal."
"Once you see movement, once someone jumps in and takes that first step, that generates momentum," he said.
Jefferson Gateway at the Airport expects to open a 45,000-square-foot building next month, and an adjacent building of 75,000 square feet by the spring.
Michael Integlia, president of the company, said yesterday that the first building was fully leased before construction started, as was a third of the larger building.
Half of the tenants getting ready to move in already rent from the company, which owns and manages about 600,000 square feet of space in Warwick.
Their businesses are growing, need room to expand and want to be near the airport, Integlia said.
Other tenants do business in other states and are here to set up regional offices, among them FirstComp Insurance Company, based in Omaha, and Aegis Lending Corporation, a national mortgage firm.
Integlia said he is building offices near the airport and next door to a hotel -- the Holiday Inn Express -- for good reason: companies are looking for space where out-of-town managers can fly in, get their work done, stay nearby and get a flight back out.
"The airport clearly is a vital resource," he said. "The national companies we deal with rely an awful lot on networking their managers from other parts of the country into the district locations. At the Holiday Inn Express, I'm sure the strength of their market is the one- or two- or three-day business traveler."
Avedisian, though he opposes building a longer runway at T.F. Green Airport, agreed yesterday that the airport is "a major factor" in promoting commercial growth in Warwick.
"Obviously, when you're moving 6 million people a year and the hotels start to come on line and start changing the streetscape in different areas, then other people want to jump in as well," he said. "It becomes a neighborhood that they want to become a part of."
"I wouldn't say it's all due to the airport," he added. "I think our tax structure is good, that city staffers have been successful in our economic development efforts, and when the Central Rhode Island Chamber [of Commerce] knows of someone who's looking to move in, they're very quick to point them in our direction."
Avedisian predicted that an even bigger phase in the building boom will get under way later this year when the state breaks ground on a $175.5-million train station on Jefferson Boulevard, with a "people-mover" connection to the terminal at T.F. Green, a quarter-mile to the east.
That will get the redevelopment of the 14-acre Station District under way in earnest, he said.
Next year, the state plans to break ground on the $19-million Apponaug Historic Village Bypass, a highway project first pitched in 1993 to make the village safer for pedestrians and promote investment in shops and restaurants.
"All of a sudden it all starts to tie in," Avedisian said. "You've got all this development coming down from the airport, to Route 5, through the Apponaug Bypass... that's hundreds of millions of dollars in new redevelopment that changes the face of the city."
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