Reinstate RI’s Historic Tax Credit!

Talking points for calls to state senators and representatives

Hello Senator/Representative ______. I want to talk with you about the state historic tax credit and why it is imperative to get it reinstated. This program has numerous, economic fiscal and community benefits. Please urge the Senate/House leadership to move this legislation before the end of the current session. Specifically, the program:

Stabilizes municipalities

Increase in property value after rehab
Providence / Rising Sun Mills / 660%
First Reservoir / 332%
Alice Building / 391%
Foundry / 918%
Woonsocket / Red Mill Lofts / 1100%
Philmont Worsted / 471%
Allen Street Lofts / 1876%
Hope Street School / 958%
Pawtucket / Riverfront Lofts / 1100%
Bayley St. Lofts / 3103%
Union Wadding / 51%
Slater Cotton Mill / 578%
  • Blighted and underused historic buildings pay little in property taxes and bring down the value of surrounding properties. Rehabilitation and re-use of those buildings yields tangible, on-the-ground improvements that continue to have a positive fiscal impact long after projects are completed.
  • Restored historic properties’ assessed value jumps by hundreds or thousands of percentage points. This stabilizes and often increases the tax base in struggling municipalities.
  • For example, the Slater Cotton Mill property in Pawtucket increased in value by 578%after being rehabbed with the aid of the state historic tax credit; the Allen Streets Lofts property in Woonsocket increased 1,876%. We can cite a dozen such examples. Rehabilitated properties are projected to generate about $300 million in additional property tax revenues over 20 years for our cities based on a 2007 study for Grow Smart Rhode Island by Lipman, Frizzell and Mitchell, a national real estate consulting company.

Makes Rhode Island regionally competitive

  • ME, CT, MA, and VT all have historic tax credit programs, which they have used to create jobs, spur large private sector investments and increase income and property tax revenues, especiallyduring the last few years of the national recession.
  • The large stock of commercial historic buildings throughout Rhode Island is one of our greatesteconomic assets. The historic tax credit allows us to fully leverage this asset and be competitive within the New England region.
  • Failure to reinstate the program will put Rhode Island at a significant disadvantage, and it will be a critical opportunity missed to increase economic output whenand where it is most needed.

Presents alow risk, high return investment

  • The historic tax creditis a low risk investment. The creditsare only distributed afterproject completion, so taxpayers are always getting asolid return on their investmentand one that is long term vs. a one shot deal.
  • Reinstating the historic tax credit will produce economic benefits that will far exceed the program’s projected cost – something very few other programs can deliver.
  • According to the 2007 Lipman Frizzell and Mitchell study done for Grow Smart RI, for every dollar the state invested in the previous historic tax credit program, more than $5 was generated in economic activityduring and after construction.
  • RI’s previous tax credit program has generated thousands of jobs; producedhundreds of much needed workforce housing units; and restored over 100vacant orunderutilized buildings in 23 different cities and towns.

Will jumpstart construction jobs and attract long term knowledge economy jobs

  • Reinstating the historic tax credit will generate new labor intensive construction activity quickly at atime when our construction sector is still hurting badly, with unemployment rates approaching 40%. According to a 2007 analysis of the impact of the old state historic tax credit program conducted for Grow Smart RI by the Columbia, Maryland based real estate consulting and investment firm of Lipman, Frizzell and Mitchell , the 150 projects completed during the first five years of the program (2002-2007) generated an estimated 6,185 construction jobs, earning $236.43 million in wages.
  • Rhode Island’s large concentration of historic properties and neighborhoods is an especially valuable tool in the effort to reposition and improve our economy. A large number of high paying, knowledge economy businesses have chosen to relocate to rehabbed historic buildings in our state, even in the midst of a deep recession. In recent years for instance:

United Natural Foods,America’s largest distributor of organic products, relocated from Connecticut to the American Locomotive properties in the Valley section of Providence.

Atrion Networking expanded at the HopeArtisteVillage site (formerly Hope Webbing) in Pawtucket.

Dassault Systemes Simulia Corporation (formerly Abaqus), a prominent member of the pre packaged software industry renewed its lease recently at the Rising Sun Mills in Olneyville.

More than a half dozen marine industry companies moved to the restored AquidneckMillBuilding on the Newport waterfront.

And Moran Shipping Agencies, a technologically sophisticated business with extensive national and international activities decided to stay in Rhode Island rather than move to Houston, rehabilitating the old RI Medical Society Building on Francis Street in Providence for its international corporate headquarters