Pawtucket

closing, or moving their facilities south,where operations and labor were cheaper. But unlike numerous older mill towns in the region, Pawtucket retained much of its industrial base.Today, the city has a broad cross section of industries and small businesses. Goods produced include lace, non-woven and elastic woven materials, jewelry, silverware,metals, and textiles.Hasbro, one of the world’s larg- est manufacturers of toys and games, is still headquartered in Pawtucket, as is Collette Tours, one of the top two tour agencies in the country,Tunstall Americas, Pet Food Experts, and the Cooley Group. In addition, as traditional manufacturing declined, Pawtucket was able to repurpose some of its former industrial assets and, as a result, the city of 72,000 has become a well-known, regional center for the arts.“The city took those old mill buildings and repo- sitioned them,” says Jeanne Boyle, the city’s Director of Commerce and Redevelopment. “They changed a lot of their zoning regu- lations, and 307 acres of Pawtucket were declared an Arts District.They worked ag- gressively to focus on repurposing those mill buildings for live/work space and for small businesses. So, hundreds of new units of resi- dential and dozens of small businesses have been created in those former mill buildings.” Today, the Pawtucket Arts District encompass- es 23 mills and 60 streets and, in addition to AT A GLANCE PAWTUCKET, R.I. WHAT: A city of 72,000 WHERE: Northern, Rhode Island WEBSITE: www.pawtucketri.com PAWTUCKET, RHODE ISLAND being the home of many artists and art-related businesses, some of the repurposed mills have also become the nexus of Pawtucket’s nascent brewery industry. However, all of that vibrant economic activity did not entire- ly shield Pawtucket from the consequences of the recent Great Recession, and several years ago, the city almost defaulted-a situation which did occur in the neighboring city of Central Falls. Pawtucket’s mayor,Donald R. Grebien, first entered office in 2011, and, according to his Director of Communications Lauren Greene, “was facing the very real possibility that the state would take over our city and it would go into bankruptcy.”The good news is that Pawtucket hung on; it continued to invest in its infrastructure, it streamlined its permitting and development processes, and it stabilized its tax structure,while overseeing a wide range of public and private investments that began to truly turn the city’s fortunes around. Now, Pawtucket is poised to undergo yet another cycle of evolu- tion, as outlined in its bold 2020 Downtown Development Vision, which includes several major initiatives–a new commuter rail station, a National Historical Park, a newmajor league,AAA ball- park, a regional bike path system, and downtown and riverfront development. DONALD R. GREBIEN, MAYOR