Car wash owner bids on Ayotte

WOONSOCKET – The owner of a chain of car washes in four states has made a $450,000 all-cash offer to purchase Ayotte Field for the purpose of building what would be his fifth location in Rhode Island, according to Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt.

Vin Porzio operates the Personal Touch chain of car washes, including locations in Johnston, North Providence and two more under construction in Cranston and West Warwick, according to the mayor. The company also operates multiple locations in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Florida.

The mayor said the pro- posed city facility would also include a pet-washing station, as do some of Personal Touch’s other locations.

The mayor says she’s fully supportive of selling the parcel to Porzio and has forwarded the offer to the City Council for its consideration.

“It would add a service to the city that people would be interested in,” said Baldelli-Hunt. “I think it would be extremely successful.”

As for the dog-washing station, Baldelli-Hunt added, “I think that is a really neat, interesting feature.”

Council President Daniel Gendron said the council has scheduled a work session to discuss the offer on Sept. 24.

He said it’s impossible to say at the moment whether a majority of the council will look favorably upon the offer or keep looking for another suitor.

“We’re going to take it up in a public forum and discuss it,” said Gendron. “We’ll collectively decide whether that’s the direction we want to take or go in a different direction.”

Baldelli-Hunt said she visited the

Personal Touch car wash on Killingly Street in North Providence and was impressed by the cleanliness and sophistication of the operation. She called it “a real head-turner.”

The fact that Porzio’s offer is all cash and contingency-free, Baldelli-Hunt said, is a plus, because the terms are simple enough for the city to conclude the transaction quickly.

Porzio’s offer would be the fourth that the city has entertained for Ayotte Field since early 2016, when Cumberland Farms offered the city $825,000 for the roughly 2-acre site

at the corner of Providence Street and Great Road in North Smithfield – an area considered ideal for commercial real estate investment. After kicking the tires for a few months, however, Cumberland Farms concluded that the traffic configuration at the busy intersection wasn’t suitable for its busy retail model.

The latest deal to fall apart involved First Bristol Corporation, a Fall River-based real estate development company that was eyeing the parcel for some type of retail or office development. Responding to

a round of competitive bidding, First Bristol had offered $711,000 for the parcel, but it backed out in September 2017 because it was unable to find tenants who wanted to operate from the location.

The public solicitation for proposals that resulted in First Bristol’s bid also drew another offer from Cost Realty of Lincoln for $625,000. The city never followed up on that because it did not meet the minimum offer the council was willing to entertain at the time – $700,000.

Discouraged that the parcel

wasn’t commanding higher prices, the council decided against issuing yet another request for proposals after the collapse of the First Bristol deal. Instead, they decided to post a “for sale” sign on the property.

Asked how Porzio came to make the offer on Ayotte Field, the mayor suggested that the sign may have been responsible for calling his attention to the availability of the parcel.