By JOHN HOWELL
 
Davol, currently based in Cranston, will move its world headquarters to a 200,000-square-foot office park next to the Crowne Plaza Hotel alongside Route 95, according to plans being advanced by Carpionato Properties.
"We would hope to start construction as soon as we have the permits," Carpionato Vice President Kelly Coates said yesterday. He estimates the $15 million brick and glass building would be ready for occupancy by late fall 2007.
The City Council at last night's meeting was expected to consider revisions to zoning of the property, which would allow Carpionato to alter its initial plans to build a 200-room hotel and 76,000 square feet of offices on the site. The company also has plans to build 288 condominiums on the 50-acre property.
In addition to dropping the hotel proposal, Carpionato is looking for approvals to exceed the 35-foot building height restriction by 20 feet, said Coates.
Coates said both the office park and the condominiums would complete the build-out of the property, a former sand and gravel pit that has been the suggested site for a number of hotly debated developments from big box retail stores to a jewelry trade center.
Coates said the deal with Davol materialized out of the relationship Carpionato developed with the company as it downsized its manufacturing operations in Cranston and the space was converted to a Citizens Bank processing center. At one time Davol, a subsidiary of C. R. Bard, Inc., had considered closing its Rhode Island offices and relocating to New Jersey, Coates said. Under the agreement, Davol will lease the office building for 20 years.
"Now we [Rhode Island] get to keep them and the jobs that they have," said Coates. "This is a major win for Warwick."
Davol's roots in Rhode Island date back more than 130 years when Joseph Davol and Emery Perkins founded the company in Providence. According the to company's Web site, the company was the outcome of two years of experiments and inventions by Joseph Davol of innovative processes of manufacturing rubber products. The company manufactured rubber drug and surgical supplies and was named Davol Manufacturing Company in 1878 when Davol assumed full control. Within 15 years of its founding, Davol was an international leader in production of rubber drug and surgical supplies with markets for its goods in South America, Germany, Australia, China, Japan, as well as in all parts of the United States.
In the late 1930s, Davol and C. R. Bard, Inc. established a long-standing relationship when Bard served as a distributor for Davol's first generation of Foley catheters. At the time, Bard was essentially a surgical supply house emphasizing urological products. In the early 1940s, an agreement was made that Davol would market all Foley catheters through Bard and in 1980 it became part of Bard.
As Davol grew, so did its commitment to the development of specialty products for the medical profession. This trend culminated in 1971 with the opening of the company's current headquarters, the Davol Medical Products Center. In addition to executive, administrative and marketing offices, the facility housed a manufacturing center devoted to the production of extruded and molded plastic medical products, along with its headquarter offices. Originally this site was on a 27-acre piece of land; however, Davol has, over the years, donated several acres of land to Cranston and the state of Rhode Island for a library and other state facilities.
Coates said the Davol building would have parking for 400 cars and a second office building would have parking for 240. He said the building would be "pretty much buffered from the neighborhood" and access would be from the Crowne Plaza entrance at a traffic light. That entrance will also be used for the Continental Little League ball field that is also on the property. The existing entrance to the ball field will then become the exclusive entrance to the condominium development.
Coates said construction on the condos is also projected to start this year.
The projects are being coordinated with the $10 million realignment of the Route 113 and Route 5 intersection, which is projected for completion in late 2007. In addition to the office park and condominiums, Carpionato is readying to build a 120-room addition to the Crowne Plaza for a total of 386 rooms and is finishing construction of a Lowe's Home Improvement Center on the site of the former Apex store, which is now open and is preparing to build a Stop & Stop and series of retail stores on an adjoining parcel. Those sites are north of the Crowne Plaza on the opposite site of Route 113.
Officials at neither Bard nor Davol could be reached for comment.