Warwick Mayor Seals Deal To Move City Offices To Sawtooth Mill

WARWICK, RI — Mayor Frank Picozzi on Monday signed a fifteen-year agreement with the American Automobile Association for the city to lease a large portion of the historic Sawtooth Building in Apponaug.

Picozzi called it a "historic day for Warwick" and signed papers inside the light-filled building while sitting beside AAA Northeast Executive Vice President Stephen Many.

"We will now have a modern office building that will make our government much more efficient and more effectively serve the people of this city," Picozzi said on Facebook.

Picozzi had long said that consolidating municipal offices to a location near City Hall was part of his vision for the city.

Last week the Warwick City Council approved the lease deal. The city will pay around $8.1 million over 15 years. Other options were seen as more expensive and problematic, the mayor said. The mayor’s office, city clerk, and the Board of Canvassers will remain at City Hall.

The AAA bought the old mill from the state in 2018 for $875,000 with plans to build a call center. However, those plans fell through, leaving plenty of unused space. The AAA's quandary and the city's need for consolidated office space happened to coincide.

Until 2018, many municipal offices were housed at the decrepit City Hall Annex. That building closed in early 2018 after a pipe burst. Offices were hastily moved to the vacant Greene School and to the Buttonwoods Community Center. When Picozzi took office, he looked at renovating the Annex, but learned that the building was structurally unsound and could not be insured. The Annex is now slated for demolition.

AAA will retain a small portion of the Sawtooth Building, and Picozzi said construction will begin soon.