R.I. Commerce Corp. committee recommends tax breaks for hotel near T.F. Green Airport

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — A $24-million project to build a Hyatt Place hotel near T.F. Green Airport in Warwick won recommendation Wednesday for up to $5.3 million in economic incentives from the Rhode Island Commerce Corporation.

The corporation's investment committee agreed to recommend that the full Commerce Corporation board of directors approve the incentives at a meeting Monday, Commerce Secretary Stefan Pryor said after the committee meeting.

The proposed incentives would be:

* up to $3.5 million under the statewide tax-increment financing program, which allows taxes collected from a development project to be paid back to the developer to help offset project costs;

* about $1.4 million in Rebuild Rhode Island tax credits, which allows a developer to get up to 20 percent of the total project cost in tax credits that can be used, traded or redeemed with the state for 90 percent of their value; and

* between $300,000 and $400,000 in a sales-tax exemption on construction materials.

The hotel is the first of several development projects that Michael V. D'Ambra said he hopes to build on about eight acres the D'Ambra family owns near the airport.

D'Ambra, president of the D'Ambra Construction Co., Inc., agreed to two conditions before the investment committee approved the project, Pryor said. 

When D'Ambra applied for the Rebuild Rhode Island credits in November, he said he proposed then that he would pay back the amount of the credits to the state over time. The agreement under consideration by the Commerce Corporation would require D'Ambra to begin paying a portion of the credit back in the hotel's sixth year of operation. In an interview, D'Ambra said he expects to be able to pay back that amount by the 12th year of operations, but the agreement stipulates that it must be paid back by the 16th year.

The other condition approved by the investment committee is that D'Ambra must demolish the rest of his company's now-decommissioned asphalt plant. As D'Ambra began developing plans for the land his family owns near the airport, he moved the asphalt operations to Johnston.