Job and Land Use Impacts of a Proposed Container Port at Quonwet Point, Rhode Island

The proposed container port at maturity could create a total of approximately 3,800 jobs, including approximately 3,200 direct and induced jobs and possibly as many as 600 magnet jobs in distribution businesses. The 600 distribution jobs would require a total of approximately one million square feet of warehouse space. In addition to land that might be available for this purpose within the boundaries of Quonset/Davisville Port and Commerce Park, there are seven sites within a ten-mile radius of the proposed port that could accommodate this distribution activity. The study also found that the summary PIERS data on import and export flows by region is fundamentally flawed because it assigns containers to the headquarters location of the shipper rather than the actual point of origin or destination. This can distort the size and mix of imports and exports by regions. The state needs to conduct a more thorough analysis of the potential of the proposed port to capture a viable share of the container market. This analysis must overcome the limitations of the summary PIERS data by drilling down to a level of detail that captures true container flows by good type by origin and destination point. The few remaining large tracts of land with industrialized zoning in the Quonset-Worcester corridor should be protected from encroachment by local distribution uses. Quonset is the best of these sites, and should not be sub-divided for uses that could be accommodated at smaller sites elsewhere in Rhode Island.