Sasse Calls For Strict Due Diligence By Commerce RI on $400M Pawtucket Stadium Project
Wednesday, December 11, 2019
The clock is on for the 120 days of the due diligence phase by Commerce RI with the developers of the proposed $400 million "Tidewater Landing" project in Pawtucket.
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The project being proposed by Fortuitous Partners, led by Brett Johnson and Berke Bakay, envisions apartments, retail, commercial space, and a 7,500 seat soccer stadium.
Gary Sasse, the head of the Hassenfeld Institute at Bryant University voiced support for the concept, but calls for the State of Rhode Island to be vigilant in its review of the project and the investors.
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“Let me say this about Pawtucket -- no one has seen the final proposal and then what the deal looks like. So we've talked about concepts right now but we know a couple of things and I think Pawtucket is a poster child for why the opportunity zone legislation can be helpful,” said Sasse on GoLocal LIVE.
“For 70 years, at least 70 years, Pawtucket has been stagnated," said Sasse who points to the loss of retail downtown and the decline of manufacturing in Pawtucket.
“It has to pass the smell test of being economically viable that there could be a market demand for the project because no Opportunity Zone's going to succeed -- and the public gets ripped off -- unless there's a viable market for what's being developed in the zone,” said Sasse.
It has been a little more than a week since top Rhode Island officials announced the major development in Pawtucket to take advantage of President Donald Trump's "opportunity zone" program.
The federal program has been under criticism as it was sold as being intended to help the poor, but critics claim that the program is being manipulated and benefiting the wealthy investors.
Governor Gina Raimondo and Pawtucket Mayor Donald Grebien in their announcement last week said that the Fortuitous project will be the largest economic development project in Pawtucket’s history — a project that requires as much as $90 million in direct Rhode Island taxpayer subsidies. The project is titled Tidewater Landing.
The estimated $400 million project will transform Pawtucket’s waterfront with hundreds of thousands of square feet of new development, including a new professional soccer team that will compete in the USL Championship – the second division of professional soccer in the United States, claim officials.
A GoLocal investigation looked into the track records of Johnson and Bakay:
Rhode Island was introduced to Brett Johnson of Fortuitous Partners this week — complete with videos and renderings for a proposed $400 million project. Johnson and his partners in Fortuitous are proposing a mix of sports, retail, office and residential — a project promised to transform Pawtucket and the region.
A project that if it comes to fruition, the developers will receive public investment that is expected to be approximately 20% of project costs -- in the range of $70 to $90 million total, with an anticipated $60-$80 million of that total to be derived from state revenue.
A GoLocal investigation has found that one of the partners in Fortuitous, not Johnson — but a man named Berke Bakay — was the head of a major restaurant chain that was forced into bankruptcy in 2019 shortly after he led the company as the top corporate executive and as a leader of the board.
Johnson also has had a high profile business background. Brett Johnson and his brother Grant Johnson are partners today in a firm called Benevolent Capital.
They used to run a firm called Benevolent Capital Partners and another company with a similar name that Brett Johnson said he was not involved in. That firm, Benevolent Partners, LP, according to Brett Johnson was solely controlled by his brother Grant and it was ordered by courts in California and Connecticut to pay millions for “intentional misrepresentation” and breach of contract.
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