Trifecta Sports Network
By: Tanner Rebelo
On Friday the Rhode Island Commerce Corporation Board of Directors approved a financing plan for the Tidewater Landing project in Pawtucket. This is specifically for the investment in public infrastructure improvements and not the stadium which is being privately financed.
“On behalf of everyone at Fortuitous Partners, I want to express our thanks to Governor Raimondo, incoming Governor McKee, Mayor Grebien and his team, and Secretary Pryor and Commerce RI for their support and the incredible amount of hard work that has culminated into making Tidewater Landing a reality,” said Brett Johnson, founder of Fortuitous Partners. “We are excited for this unique, sports-anchored live, work, play community and the launch of professional soccer at Tidewater Landing, to help transform Blackstone Valley and the City of Pawtucket and to provide an added source of pride for the great State of Rhode Island. With this exceptional milestone support from the City and State, we will break ground later this year, creating thousands of jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars of positive social and economic impact, and we cannot wait to welcome Rhode Islanders to our inaugural home game in 2023. Thank you to all for your support and faith in this project and we are honored and grateful to move to this exciting next stage.”
WHAT THE COMMERCE CORPORATION BOARD APPROVED:
Use of defined district-specific revenues to enable financing a $36.2 (combined city and state) Super TIF bond as outlined in the General Assembly’s enabling legislation.
An investment in the form of a rebate on sales and use taxes related to construction materials on the project and Rebuild Rhode Island Tax Credits estimated at up to $14M ($10M net).
The public share of the total project is expected to be 17% or $46.2M which is under the December of 2019 initial framework which called for under 20% of the total project cost.
Some of the main public infrastructure improvements involve traffic. In the masterplan, there are calls for improving the ease of on-and-off I-95, new traffic signals, and pedestrian improvements.
TIDEWATER LANDING STADIUM WORK ON THE HORIZON
While this news today doesn’t speak specifically to the soccer stadium it is an important step en-route to playing soccer in downtown Pawtucket. The stadium itself will seat a minimum of 7,500 fans but can be flexed up to 11,000 based on its design. If all goes according to plan the start of construction on the stadium will start in Q4 of 2020 and will be completed by Q1 of 2023. Currently, the plan is for the USL Championship to take the field for the 2023 season.
From now until Q4 the stadium will be undergoing various paperwork and design arrangements but also in the near future, the National Grid site remediation will take place to clear the way for construction to begin. The Tidewater Landing site was approved for brownfields grants from the state of Rhode Island in December of 2020 which will help with the site’s remediation.
Until then we can enjoy the new renderings that were released on the Tidewater Landing stadium.