Retailer moving from Mystic to Westerly
Ivory Ella, an online retailer that gives 10 percent of its profits to the charity Save the Elephants, will be moving from Mystic to Westerly thanks to a Rhode Island tax incentive program.
The Rhode Island Commerce Commission said Tuesday that its board of directors has approved $362,055 in tax credits to help relocate 40 Ivory Ella employees to a building formerly housing The Paragon gift shop warehouse at 89 Tom Harvey Road. According to a release, the company has promised to expand by at least 20 new employees over the next three years.
Ryan Duranso, chief executive of Ivory Ella, said the company searched around Connecticut before settling on a building that offered room for expansion. The Paragon is listed as having more than 130,000 square feet of space.
Ivory Ella, whose motto is "Good Clothes for a Good Cause," announced on its Facebook page last month during its one-year anniversary that the company had given away more than $150,000 to the elephant charity it supports. Another post mentioned a $110,000 donation.
"The Ocean Cities Chamber, Town of Westerly, Rhode Island Commerce Corp. and Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training all gave us confidence that we were making the best long-term choice for the business," Duranso said in a statement.
The project is being supported by the state's Qualified Jobs Incentive Tax Credit program. No time frame was given for the move to be completed.
Other projects approved by the Rhode Island board Monday supported $3 million for construction of a 120-room hotel in downtown Providence and $3.6 million for the adaptive reuse of vacant Pontiac Mills in Warwick into a mixed-use development totaling about 200,000 square feet.
"The projects announced today demonstrate that our economic development tools are continuing to bring new jobs and new investment to our state," said Rhode Island Commerce Secretary Stefan Pryor in a statement. "Rhode Island is a vibrant place to do business and companies ranging from social enterprises to national hotel chains are taking notice."
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