Look Inside Amazon’s Rhode Island Facility.
Look Inside Amazon’s Rhode Island Facility.
The local business world faced some shakeups, as well as some new growth, in 2024.
From hundreds laid off at CVS, to the burgeoning impact of the Washington Bridge closure on businesses in the East Bay, to the opening of a new Amazon distribution center in Johnston, here’s a look at some of the biggest economic development stories of the year.
Providence Place mall woes
Providence Place, the city mall that opened with much fanfare in 1999 as the triumphant return to downtown retail shopping, was placed in receivership after its chief lender alleged in court papers that the mall’s management company owed $259 million in outstanding loans.
In a receivership, the court appoints an independent “receiver” or trustee to oversee a troubled company’s business and is given great latitude to secure money owed creditors, including the sale of assets.
Hasbro ponders move to Massachusetts
Massachusetts’ efforts to woo Hasbro across state lines all started at an April 3 dinner.
Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks met with Yvonne Hao, the Bay State’s secretary of the Executive Office of Economic Development. They talked about the toys and games of their childhoods, and how many are still in their homes today.
But even before that meeting, emails between the company and Massachusetts officials suggest the Pawtucket-based Hasbro already had sites in mind for a possible new headquarters in the greater Boston area.
After the July 22 meeting, Massachusetts officials sent Hasbro a summary of incentives available to the company. That summary was not originally included in the emails but was subsequently sent and is available here.
But that’s not the only way Hasbro made headlines. Elon Musk posted on X asking how much it would cost, fueling speculation that he was interested in buying the company. Musk’s ask about how much it would cost to buy Hasbro, which owns Wizards of the Coast, which in turns owns and publishes Dungeons & Dragons, came after he tweeted that his artificial intelligence company, xAI, is going to start a video games studio.
Stop & Shop announces store closures
Dutch-based Ahold Delhaize announced in May that it would close underperforming stores, including the Eastside Marketplace in Providence.
Rhode Island Stop & Shop stores lowered everyday prices on some 3,500 items in each store, new company president Roger Wheeler, who has been in the job about a week, told The Providence Journal in an exclusive interview in October.
“We don’t want to be known for always having the highest price,” Wheeler said.
Citizens Bank threatens to leave RI
Massachusetts’ decision, effective Jan. 1, to join states who calculate bank taxes on a single factor – net income generated in the state – rather than on multiple factors, including payroll and property, was a factor in Citizens Bank considering a move across the border.
Rhode Island taxes banks based on three factors, which Citizens said penalizes the firm for having its headquarters here in a sprawling back office complex in Johnston, plus many brick-and-mortar branches.
Citizens Executive Vice President Mike Knipper wrote that the bank’s “long-standing commitment to the state is severely threatened” by Rhode Island tax policy, which makes it “incentivized to move at least some operations to Massachusetts.”
But in June, House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi, Senate President Dominick Ruggerio and Gov. Dan McKee announced an agreement to change the way Rhode Island taxes banks that will match Massachusetts’ method and help financial firms with large physical footprints in the state.
Citizens, which is headquartered in Providence and opened a sprawling $285-million office campus in Johnston in 2018, fits that description and is the only firm to have publicly lobbied for the change.
Lifespan rebrands as Brown University Health
Lifespan, the largest health care system in Rhode Island as well as the state’s largest employer, rebranded itself as Brown University Health this year.
Lifespan and Brown University’s Warren Alpert Medical School have long been affiliated and share staff who both teach medical students and work at Lifespan’s hospitals.
The rebranding is part of a set of affiliation agreements that include reciprocal financial investments between Lifespan and Brown, which will continue as separate, independent organizations.
CVS announces layoffs
CVS Health announced in early December that it would cut another 796 jobs between the end of January and the beginning of February, which appear to be part of its announced plans for 2,900 total job cuts.
The total 796 layoffs represent 27% of the 2,900 people put out of work. Senior Vice President of Human Resources Erin Ridge wrote in the letter that the number of workers “at the facility,” meaning headquarters locations in Cumberland and Woonsocket, is 12 and the rest of the 784 jobs being people who work in other states.
While the total job cuts announced was 2,900, 632 people were “selected for termination” by December 2024, 153 of whom “work at the facility.”
In October, CVS replaced CEO Karen Lynch with David Joyner, who had been the president of the company’s benefit manager, CVS Caremark.
Amazon distribution center opens in Johnston
The enormous Amazon distribution facility has started distributing goods across the state.
The facility, however, will not reach its maximum operating capacity for some time, as the company continues a hiring push to fill more roles. When it is fully operational, the site will employ 1,500 people. That’s more people than the entire full-time population of Block Island, estimated at 1,400.
A sprawling 1,800-space parking lot leads to the front of the building and is accompanied by a large space in the back, with over 60 docks for semitrailers and 200 spaces for trailers.
The minimum wage for Amazon workers is $17 an hour, while the average is $20.50 an hour. There are “hundreds” of job types.
Electric Boat is hiring
Submarine builder General Dynamics Electric Boat announced in February that it planned to hire more than 5,000 people in 2024 including 1,900 at its Rhode Island shipyard in Quonset Point, as construction of the Columbia class of ballistic nuclear missile submarines ramps up.
The Columbia program now equals the amount of work at Electric Boat on the Virginia class of attack submarines. The two programs combined account for 80% of the work at the submarine builder.
Schartner’s gets green light for massive greenhouse
After years of shock, some awe, opposition and finally collaboration, farmer Tim Schartner has the necessary approval from Exeter officials to resume building his gargantuan, 25-acre greenhouse.
The town Planning Board voted unanimously this fall to accept Schartner’s plans for his $80 million venture into the future of agriculture, with the condition he meet the board’s last few stipulations in the coming months.
Those stipulations include tweaking internal design to meet fire safety concerns for workers inside the enormous mall-size space, purchasing one of the three lots the project will sit on (now under agreement), and obtaining an air permit for the gas-fired electrical generators from the state Department of Environmental Management.