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My Little

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Pony may saddle up and ride out of town.

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The toy giant Hasbro,
a Pawtucket institution,

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is considering relocating to Boston.

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Reporter Alexa Gagosz joins us from Rhode
Island with the real life Toy Story.

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Alexa.

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Hasbro makes monopoly, Mr.

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Potato Head, Play-Doh.

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But we're not talking playing
money and games here.

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Why is the toy giant considering
leaving Pawtucket?

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And what could that mean to the city's
economy?

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Absolutely.

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This is not play money,

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especially for the state of Rhode Island
in the city of Pawtucket.

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Hasbro
executives have basically told employees

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that if they make a decision to leave,
it'll be in the next 18 months or so.

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they're complaining
about an aging building

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that they've been in
for the last several decades.

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Right on Newport Avenue in Pawtucket.

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And they just said that
they need infrastructure for taking Hasbro

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into the next generation of innovation
and creation and play for that matter.

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and apparently this facility
is just not it.

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Now, when it comes to Pawtucket, though,
I mean, Hasbro has been an institution

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there since its founding in 1923
by the Hatfield family.

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If they were to leave, it would just be
yet another loss for this city.

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An old mill city that has really struggled
to figure out what its next future

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really is.

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You know,
they're building the Tidewater Soccer

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Stadium for the future
Rhode Island FC soccer team.

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But at the same time, they lost
Memorial Hospital in its closure in 2019.

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And the PawSox left Pawtucket to go right
over the border to Worcester as well.

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So if Hasbro is to leave,
this would be an incredible hit.

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And I don't think those realities are yet
quite seen.

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Yeah, you mentioned Pawtucket
losing pieces like this Mrs.

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Potato Head doll.

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But Pawtucket is not willing to go down
without a fight.

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What's the city's effort?

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What are they doing to keep Hasbro?

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Absolutely.

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So this all just happened very quickly.

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I will say that the governor
and the speaker of the House,

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they just met with Hasbro
CEO Chris Cox last week

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for just the first initial meeting
about how we kind of keep Hasbro,

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which employs a 1000 Rhode Island
based employees here in Rhode Island.

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Many of those employees, by the way,
who won't envision themselves leaving

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to go to Boston to move to Bos
and they'll probably find another job.

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So I think that these conversations
are very preliminary.

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However, the governor has given Pawtucket
Mayor Don Grebien the first pitch,

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and that pitch is we want to move Hasbro
into the apex building,

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the apex building, which is visible
from 95, centrally located in downtown.

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But it is really Rhode Island's pyramid.

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It's been vacant for decades

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and is not much younger
than their current headquarters.

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So that pitch meeting has yet to happen.

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it's unclear at this time
if Hasbro is interested,

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and frankly, they just have not yet
commented for this story.

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Joining us from Rhode
Island with a real life toy store,

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it actually actually started talking.

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Joining us for Rhode Island.

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Reporter Alexi Gagosz,
thank you so much for joining us.

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Thank you.

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For daily access to Boston Globe today.

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