No Costco for Cranston (for now)

The City Council’s Ordinance Committee voted Thursday to deny the zoning application by a Mass.-based developer who hoped to bring the big box store to town.

Shopping carts at the entrance to a Costco store.David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

CRANSTON, R.I. — Rhode Islanders looking to save money by shopping at Costco may have to wait even longer for a local warehouse.

On Thursday, the City Council’s Ordinance Committee voted to deny the zoning application by Massachusetts-based developer Coastal Partners LLC, squashing the hope of bringing a Costco store to the area. A previous proposal for the same site, a property on New London Avenue that currently houses Mulligan’s Island Golf & Entertainment, received pushback from the community when it was deliberated in the past.

Residents and city leaders, including Mayor Ken Hopkins and Representative Barbara Ann-Fenton Fung, a Cranston Republican, spoke out against the site at the time. Hopkins had said previously that he welcomed Costco to look at other potential sites in the city.

After deliberating the plan throughout the second half of 2020, Coastal Partners LLC, through their attorney, sent a letter to the Cranston City Council in December, and issued a withdrawal for the zoning change for the “Cranston Crossing” project, nixing the plan for the multi-use space in which Costco would have been the centerpiece.

But when Coastal Partners came back to the drawing board and presented their plan to City Council this week, it was denied for a second time.

Michael DiGuiseppe, managing partner of Coastal Partners, said the wholesale club would be a major economic driver for the city— creating jobs and adding tax revenue. But the committee decided that the developer’s new proposal was too close to the original. Some said it would “take away green space” for recreational use.

DiGuiseppe told a Globe reporter on the phone Friday morning that he would not speak at this time, but “may in the future.”