FEATURED CITY | Pawtucket
Pawtucket is a Welcoming Home for Small Business 71,148 1671 1886 9.00 sq mi
Population Founded as Town Incorporated as City Area
Mayor Donald R. Grebien First may I welcome Rhode Island Small Business Journal to our business media landscape. Your publication offers an important and much needed new focus on the small businesses in our state and what they need to succeed in this highly competitive era so they can create jobs and help their businesses, and our economy, to grow. It was in 1925 that President Calvin Coolidge said, “The chief business of the American people is business.” Today that remains especially true for our small businesses in Pawtucket, which make up the overwhelming number of the more than 3,000 businesses we have in our city. Small business people are independent at heart and entrepreneurial in spirit. What they seek from any local government is a clear and responsive regulatory landscape so they can avoid any unnecessary red tape and go about their business as efficiently as possible. That’s why, even before my administration took office, we announced a “Welcome Mat” program to smooth the way for the businesses we already have and want to see grow, and to assist new businesses looking to enter the city. The basic idea is not new but it needed new energy to get our various city departments back on the same page.
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RISBJ | rhode island small business journal
In a word, what our business climate probably needed most at the time was what amounted to a breath of fresh air: a committed business-like approach on the part of the city itself toward helping our businesses to succeed. Every week, officials from our Fire, Zoning and Planning departments gather for a meeting that any business can attend for one-stop access to key decision makers who can smooth their way through the regulatory process. Besides being simply the right thing to do, it’s no secret that, especially in an extremely challenging economy, helping businesses become more viable also results in boosting the tax base, which is good for everybody. To attract significant investment requires investment of its own. That’s why, for the first time in years, we designated an economic development coordinator to work with companies that are looking to
do business in Pawtucket or exploring potential for growth and development. Our Planning and Redevelopment Department, with its extensive links to resources and knowledgeable staff, also remains a great resource. Our Redevelopment Agency can also provide loans to small businesses for building purchase, equipment, working capital and relocation assistance. Our hard work has begun to pay off. A long vacant space downtown is now occupied by the Cresta Italian restaurant, thanks to entrepreneurs from the Boston area who saw the potential here. The High Jinx Brewery, whose principals are also from Massachusetts, will open this fall to market its craft beers from a facility taking advantage of Pawtucket’s state-ofthe-art water filtration plant. Less publicly known, The Bucket Brewery is already renting space in a mill on Mineral Spring Avenue for the artisan crafted beers it will ultimately sell wholesale. Besides what assistance municipal government can lend business-bybusiness, we also have a larger role to play to improve the overall tax and business climate and boost job growth. My administration supported the recent five-year renewal of our Enterprise Zone tax credits for businesses that create local jobs. We have also taken a leading role in advocating with state regulators and