Nestor gets new financing

PROVIDENCE — Nestor Inc. (NEST:OTCBB) said it secured $500,000 in new financing to support growth in the company’s automated traffic safety enforcement business. Several institutional and accredited investors committed $500,000 in bridge financing. Nestor’s board of directors approved the investment.

Clarence A. Davis, Nestor’s chief executive officer, said, “We are extremely pleased with investors’ demonstrated confidence in Nestor. To have secured financing in this market on such favorable terms demonstrates Nestor’s inherent strength and serves notice that we are here to stay.”

Nestor’s third-quarter financial results will be released mid-November.

Restaurant sale OK’d

PROVIDENCE — The revolving door at 123 Empire St. in Providence spun once again yesterday as a Superior Court judge approved the sale of Bravo Brasserie. Bravo Brasserie is the fourth restaurant to occupy the corner of Empire and Washington streets since 1999 in what would seem to be a prime location across from Trinity Rep’s Lederer Theater downtown. In August, the majority owner of Bravo Brasserie pushed the business into state receivership, hoping to find a buyer willing to assume the restaurant’s debts, some of which were inherited from a previous owner. Receivership is a form of bankruptcy in which a court appoints a trustee to either liquidate a company or sell its assets to pay the accumulated debt. In late 2006, Peter Rotelli, of East Providence, took a majority stake in the restaurant at 123 Empire St. Bob Higginbotham, of Providence, took a minority share in the venture. He served as the restaurant’s general manager until the receivership filing. At the time of the filing, the largest creditor was Strata Bank, of Massachusetts, which was owed in excess of $500,000. A business associated with Rotelli, RS Associates, has agreed to take over the restaurant’s operations and debt, paying more than $543,000 to take over the business. Rotelli’s son, Kyle, will become a partner in the business. He’ll work with Fred Goodwin, a veteran of the defunct Barnsider’s Mile and a Quarter, who is the new general manager.

Former school rezoned

NEWPORT — The city has taken another key step in giving the defunct Sheffield School another life, one whose purpose will be commercial instead of educational. The City Council has voted to rezone the school, which closed in autumn 2006, to limited business, which would allow it to be used for offices, small retail stores, restaurants and financial institutions. Built 86 years ago, Sheffield School is a two-story, 34,000-square-foot building that sits on 1.5 acres at Broadway and Vernon Avenue. Earlier this year, residents told the council that they favored Sheffield being reused for commercial purposes over affordable housing. Since then, the Planning Board recommended amending the city’s Comprehensive Plan to approve redesignating the property from institutional to commercial.

Wind turbine recommended in Barrington

BARRINGTON — The wind energy committee has recommended that the town pay a Woburn, Mass., company to build and maintain an Elecon wind turbine at the end of Legion Way at a cost of about 10 percent below the $2.4-million limit set by the council. “The proposal submitted by Lumus Construction represents the best buy for the town,” said members of the Committee for Renewable Energy for Barrington. “They meet our technical and financial requirements and have demonstrated their ability to perform the work on similar projects.” The company is erecting a similar turbine in Newburyport, Mass. The Town Council voted to hold a workshop on the proposal this month, probably at the high school. The date will depend on the availability of the auditorium.

E. Providence council denies liquor store

EAST PROVIDENCE — City ordinances say Wine & Spirits Depot would be sufficiently away from East Providence High School’s buildings. There isn’t a church within 500 feet of the proposed business either, a condition that also must be met. Also, there has not been one blemish put on the permits and licenses for this establishment since it set up shop on Wampanoag Trail in the early 1990s. None of that mattered to the majority of the City Council this week. In a 3-to-2 vote, the board rejected a request to move Wine & Spirits Depot from its present location on the Trail to the Taunton Avenue shopping plaza behind and next to Burger King. The three members — Mayor Isadore Ramos, Valerie Perry and Bryan Silva — did not like that the city’s high school students would be in such close proximity to a liquor store. “The idea that kids will be around there,” Perry said, “I can’t vote for it.” City Solicitor William Conley Jr. said without “facts in the record” to back up the denial, the owners have a high probability of getting the license approved with an appeal to the state.

South Kingstown researching trolley service

SOUTH KINGSTOWN — Charles Ted Wright says a trolley service that runs between local beaches and hotels would go a long way toward solving parking woes and be a draw for tourists eager to shed their cars during vacation. Plus, it could bring those same tourists to shop in downtown Wakefield and at Narragansett’s Pier Marketplace, he said. The South Kingstown Economic Development Committee has tapped Wright, who offers a trolley service for tours and weddings in Narragansett, as a resource as it begins preliminary research into the feasibility of providing such a trolley service. The Economic Development Committee, working with the Narragansett and South Kingstown Chambers of Commerce, will reach out to the hotels and businesses to gauge the interest level.

Old ice cream plant gets historic status

PROVIDENCE — An early 20th-century ice cream plant at 485 Plainfield St. has been added to the National Register of Historic Places. The National Register is the federal government’s official list of properties whose historical and architectural significance make them worthy of preservation. The history of the General Ice Cream Corp. building reflects the early development of ice cream manufacturing and distribution in Rhode Island. General Ice Cream is a two-to-three-story brick building whose exterior has cornices of brick, metal and wood and two-over-two, double-hung wood windows. The interior is typical of early 20th-century construction, with painted brick walls and rows of columns supporting steel and wood beams. “Most of us enjoy ice cream without giving much thought to its history,” said Edward F. Sanderson, executive director of the state Historical Preservation & Heritage Commission. “However, the General Ice Cream factory is a significant piece of the larger story of Providence’s metropolitan development.” In addition to honoring a property for its contribution to local, state or national history, the National Register makes sites eligible for federal and state tax benefits, which can be used for renovation projects.

Elderly get discount for shuttle

NORTH PROVIDENCE — Seniors in town won’t have to pay $4 a day for the round-trip rides to the Salvatore Mancini Resource and Activity Center proposed by the state Department of Elderly Affairs. They can take a town shuttle bus for only a dollar a day. Joined by the center’s executive director, Karen Testa, Mayor Charles Lombardi announced last week that he was directing that one of two 16-passenger buses the town acquired last year pick up residents of the housing complexes for the elderly who need a ride to the center for its noontime meal. The charge will be 50 cents a ride, or $1 for a round-trip, which amounts to a savings of $15 a week for those using the service every day. Testa noted that the agency also provides rides in the center’s van for senior citizens who request transportation from their individual homes.

Riders protest cuts in RIPTA service

BURRILLVILLE — Three times a week, 81-year-old Leo Biron relies on a Providence-bound transit bus to shuttle him to his dialysis treatment. His 78-year-old wife, Gloria, frets about the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority’s plan for jettisoning the No. 9 bus connection to Burrillville. “If he doesn’t take that bus, I don’t know how I am going to get him there,” she said, speaking at a hearing on RIPTA’s proposal for cutting costs and balancing its budget. Biron was among 44 people who came to a hearing at Burrillville High School last night. The critics, including various town officials and a few people garbed in protest-style T-shirts, took an opportunity to blast the cost-savings plan within earshot of RIPTA board member John J. MacDonald Jr. and the authority’s deputy general manager, Henry Kinch. RIPTA’s cost-savings plan would force local bus riders to find their own transportation back and forth from the Apple Valley Mall in Smithfield.