Politics & Government

Council Approves Frenchtown Commons Zone Change

The development is still looking for approval by the town to tie into EG sewers.

The Frenchtown Commons development planned for the property west of the old Brown & Sharpe building on Frenchtown Road cleared another hurdle Monday night, when the Town Council approved a zone change for the property from farm to commercial highway. 

The development would include a big box store, an office building, smaller retail areas, and three stores with drive-thru lanes. The property wraps partially around the large former Brown and Sharpe building on Frenchtown Road west of Hunt River Commons (otherwise known as the Stop & Shop plaza).

The big box store, the office building and all three stores with drive-thrus are on the North Kingstown part of the property. About 25 percent of the land falls in East Greenwich. 

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The development must to be approved by both towns. North Kingstown approved the zone change earlier this fall. The project needs one more approval from East Greenwich before it can move forward to get state permits: approval from the Town Council to tap into EG's municipal sewer system.

The Public Works Department has studied whether or not the sewer system has additional capacity to handle the flow from a shopping plaza and Public Works Director Joe Duarte said the system definitely does have the capacity. The sewer system lost two significant users with the departure of the ON Semiconductor and Bostitch manufacturing several years ago, increasing the cost of sewers for the remaining users, Duarte said. There are no other prospects for increased sewer use on the horizon, such as bringing sewers to the rest of the town, he said. 

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The Town Council just needs to decide if it wants to sign that capacity over to Frenchtown Commons. The panel has not yet reviewed the Public Works study, but Frenchtown Commons lawyer John Revens was optimistic the council would support the tie in. 

"They have plenty of capacity," Revens said Tuesday. The developer hasn't looked into alternatives, he said, stating the council wouldn't be giving a zone change if it wasn't willing to let the project tie in to the sewer.

"This will be a plus for the town … I'm optimistic," he said. The developer would build the sewer infrastructure to tie in.

The Town Council will vote on a change in the sewer facilities ordinance in January. After that, the developer must obtain permits from both the state Department of Transportation and Department of Environmental Management before returning to both East Greenwich and North Kingstown for preliminary and final plan approvals.


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