CRANSTON − Costco will not be coming to Cranston anytime soon.
Plans for the bulk retailer had been submitted for the site of a former medium-security prison at 20 Goddard Ave. by developer Richard Baccari II of firm Churchill & Banks , but were apparently quickly withdrawn, Cranston Planning Director Jason Pezzullo said.
"No sooner than they gave us everything did they retract it all without prejudice and now it's not moving forward," Pezzullo said. "For a brief second it was there, and then it was gone."
Pezzullo said plans for the hugely popular bulk retailer were in his office for just "a hot second."
"We had it for three days in the office," he remarked.
The developer gave no reason for pulling the plans and nothing new has been submitted for the site.
Things had been moving forward with Costco in Cranston
In August 2023 , Mayor Ken Hopkins touted the plans for Costco on the nearly 17-acre site. Because the retailer would have gas pumps on the property, the area would have needed to be rezoned.
Pezzullo said plans were submitted for the rezoning and the master plan in late summer, but the plan was entirely retracted in September. The master plan and special zone would have been done in unison, had the plan not been pulled, he said.
An October site visit already on the books was never held.
Trucking terminal previously approved for prison site
The site has already been approved for a trucking terminal , he said.
The Costco plans would have required a rezone to go before the City Council, as it is currently zoned for government institutional and industrial, because of the former prison.
Past Costco plans fell through in 2020
In 2020, a Massachusetts developer proposed a Costco as part of the redevelopment of the Mulligan's Island mini-golf. Those plans were withdrawn after extensive public hearings, where neighborhood groups and city officials showed there was stiff opposition to the plans, generally based on traffic and "incompatibility" with the area.
Prison bought for $6.2 million at auction
The former prison sold at a 2020 auction for $6.2 million to Baccari.
In 2022, Baccari went to the city with plans to tear down the former prison and build a warehouse or manufacturing facility with an estimated 210,000-square-foot footprint, with the preliminary plan approved in October 2022.
The original project would involve the demolition of all three buildings on the site, including the main prison building, built in 1929 and opened in 1931, according to the Department of Corrections website. When it was first built, it held imprisoned children. It closed in 2011.
A political issue?
State Rep. Barbara Ann Fenton-Fung used the withdrawn Costco application as ammunition as she announced her run for mayor of Cranston , going against fellow Republican and incumbent, Hopkins.
During the campaign event, recorded by WJAR, her husband, former mayor Allan Fung, said Costco withdrew its application, a knock against Hopkins "touting" economic development.
In a news release , Hopkins wrote that the application was "paused for apparent further development discussions in September" and that big companies "do not like communities with arbitrary and contentious political environments," and that Fenton-Fung's use of the retailer as a talking point would "jeopardize" the retailer from coming.
Hopkins is "hopeful" that Costco will still build in Cranston, he wrote.
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Reach reporter Wheeler Cowperthwaite at wcowperthwaite@providencejournal.com or follow him on Twitter @WheelerReporter .
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Costco is not coming to Cranston: Beloved retailer pulls plans
