Providing Economic Opportunity
Providence has an incredible restaurant scene, world-class universities, and a thriving creative economy that make us a unique community for residents and visitors alike. With our strategic location between Boston and New York, the city is poised to boom in the years ahead.
Since taking office, Brett has focused on creating economic opportunity in every neighborhood, ensuring that growth lifts up main street businesses, workers, and families. When our neighborhood businesses needed it most, Brett and his team have provided direct support to small businesses through targeted grants responding to disruptions and crises like the Washington Bridge construction and the tragic shooting at Brown University.
The City worked with state partners and the private sector to bring American Cruise Lines back to Providence, launching a new chapter for waterfront tourism and helping attract visitors to local restaurants, shops, and cultural institutions. Across Providence, investments like this are breathing new life through development efforts that transform underutilized spaces into hubs of innovation and employment. The redevelopment of 50 Sims in the Valley District has helped turn a former manufacturing complex into a fully leased campus for creative businesses, manufacturers, and the City’s own Workforce Solutions of Providence/Cranston, supporting our growing innovation and maker economy.
Restaurants, performance venues, bars and other nighttime businesses are a major driver of Providence’s economy, supporting more than 630 businesses, nearly 10,000 jobs, and close to $1 billion in economic activity each year, according to the City’s first comprehensive Life at Night report released in 2025. Building on those findings, the City has launched initiatives to strengthen the nighttime economy while balancing neighborhood quality-of-life, including sound mitigation grants to help venues manage noise, transportation programs providing discounted scooter and ride-share rides for late-night workers, and investments in lighting, safety, and cultural programming to activate public spaces after dark.
At the same time, Brett has worked to recruit large employers to Providence by showcasing the city’s skilled workforce, modern infrastructure, quality-of-life investments, and business-friendly environment, positioning it as a prime location for headquarters, innovation hubs, and job-creating enterprises. Earlier this year, FM - one of the world’s largest insurance companies - purchased a building in Downtown Providence to serve as a major hub of operations where its employees will work, eat, and shop for decades to come.
Brett is committed to workforce development that prepares residents for the jobs of the future. His administration is partnering with the private sector to expand “earn and learn” opportunities, experience-based training, and pathways to employment for those who are unemployed or underemployed. Additionally, he has made key investments in childcare facilities, parks, recreation centers, and quality-of-life improvements that make Providence more attractive to businesses and workers alike.