Last night, Providence Working Waterfront Alliance members Joel Cohen of Promet Marine and Howard McVay of Northeast Marine Pilots, delivered a presentation to more than 50 members of the Narragansett Bay Propeller Club about the gentrification threat now facing many Providence working waterfront businesses:

The industries on Allens Avenue, including Motiva, are all part of this interrelated web. Along with Provport we are the most valuable industrial zone left in the State because we are water dependent. We have access to a 40 ft. Federal channel that makes Providence the only commercial port in the State of Rhode Island. And as you all know it cost the taxpayers in excess of 65 million dollars.

Can we allow the City to waste this investment? Can we allow the City to destroy businesses that service not just the City, but the State and the New England region as well, business that, if the cloud were lifted, can continue to grow? Or do we acquiesce to the vision of Olneyville that appears to our City Planners as the answer to a bigger tax base? You can’t see any industry at all in their pretty pictures for the future of Allens Avenue.

Read Joel Cohen’s full statement and PowerPoint presentation.