Imagine if a company were looking to move to a small area of Providence, bringing 372 high-paying jobs (averaging nearly $60,000 a year, not including benefits), and annual business sales of $294 million, with it.

Politicians would be falling all over each other to get in front of the cameras to proclaim their support for the project.

Well, in fact, Providence does have such an economic engine right on its waterfront, according to a new report by FXM Associates of Mattapoisett, Mass. — seven Allens Avenue-area businesses (Promet Marine Services, Sprague Energy, Providence Steamboat, Narragansett Improvement, Walco Electric, Philip Services Corp. and J. Goodison Company) with a combined payroll of $20 million.

Yet, instead of doing all they can to develop the full potential of Providence as a working port, some public figures are, almost unbelievably, trying to undermine it. Mayor Cicilline, for one, has been advocating “mixed-use” zoning that would bring in marinas (not exactly a full-fledged year-round business in these parts), retail stores and condo developments. These would surely bring pressures to develop the rest of the port that way, and meanwhile place all sorts of limitations on working-port companies, very soon making it harder to retain their high-paying blue-collar jobs. Condo inhabitants would demand that “gritty” (but essential to our economy) companies be forced out. (Just what we need –– more condos. . . .)

Mayor Cicilline argues that such non-working-port developments could boost waterfront real-estate values. But there are plenty of places where developers, politically connected or not, could throw up condos in Rhode Island without putting them in close proximity to Providence’s working port — a crucial place for the region’s fuel and other shipments. The trade-off would be little short of a disaster for the region’s economy.

Service and retail jobs do not pay nearly what these existing port jobs do. According to the study, it would take 1,200 retail jobs to achieve the same level of household income as the jobs at the existing businesses. Rhode Island needs year-round manufacturing and distribution jobs, not more low-paying condo and restaurant jobs reminiscent of an impoverished Caribbean island.

Rhode Island has severe budget problems. It needs an economy — with high-paying jobs — to help pay for government. Ports, by definition, stimulate economic activity in ways that condo developments never can. Unlike condos, however glitzy, ports boost trade and create large numbers of spin-off jobs for manufacturers, distributors and many other workers.

Rather than working to threaten existing well-paying blue-collar jobs, local and state politicians should be striving to create more of them. To that end, they should move to exploit Rhode Island’s natural maritime advantages by supporting and fully developing the state’s big ports — not only in Providence but also at Quonset Point. Once communities give up their working ports, experience suggests that they cannot get them back.

Are there any leaders out there who will fight to preserve high-paying jobs? They could begin by studying FXM’s report on the importance of the Allens Avenue corridor to the region’s economy. We must protect and expand New England’s working ports. Government, labor unions and business should band together to help them.