Plans for a metal-plating plant to be operated by DiFruscia Industries of Johnston in a building owned by the Cranston Print Works are on hold after the Zoning Board of Review denied a special use permit for the operation go forward.

Frederic Rockefeller, president and CEO of Cranston Print Works, said he doesn’t think DiFruscia needs a special use permit because “most of what he uses doesn’t require a special use permit.” He does a lot of things other than plating that would fall into acceptable guidelines.

However, there are major hurdles to vault with federal and state authorities.

“The fact is that the plating plant can’t go forward without Department of Environmental Management [approval], [compliance with] the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, maybe the Environmental Protection Act,” said Jason Pezzullo, principal planner in the city’s Planning Department.

Just going through all the steps of bringing all the Print Works property up to code – and there are many buildings on significant acreage – would likely take years if there were no outstanding problems.

Since the next step would be for Cranston Print Works to appeal the denial of the permit, and since all the buildings are aging significantly, the options are limited. Rockefeller said unequivocally, “we have no intention of going to court.”

As it is, all of the buildings are empty except one housing the corporate offices, and according to Pezzullo, the Print Works “has been selling off bits of the place.”

There is nothing to keep the management from razing the remaining historic buildings dating to 1807. But that is extremely unlikely, according to Rockefeller, who says management has divided the property into three parcels – the main mill and the meeting house, which is an empty church, and the screen print building, a huge structure built in the 1960s, which DiFruscia wants. The first two parcels are on the market – the church comes with seven acres – and the screen plant “was always industrial.”

A large plot on the Pocasset River with the original dam for the print works has been designated a development-free zone.

“They’re a hodgepodge to begin with, and now they’ve got serious challenges,” Pezzullo said. “The structures are failing, they don’t meet fire code standards. They’re in no way good candidates for retrofitting.”

Rockefeller disagrees. He thinks residential development shouldn’t be dismissed; people would just have to live upstairs because of the flood plain.

While objectors to the plating plant pointed to a plan that circulated three years ago for transforming Knightsville, with the Print Works being a key piece of the puzzle, Pezzula said there “was never a plan for the Print Works. You think of the Print Works and Knightsville as anchors on each end. The Print Works buildings have had challenges, chiefly that they’re in the flood plain.”

According to its website, Cranston Print Works traces its roots to a tiny cotton printing plant whose success mirrored the Industrial Revolution. It was founded by Gov. William Sprague, who called it Sprague Print Works, and used technical breakthrough equipment pioneered by Samuel Slater, William Arkwright, James Hargreaves and Samuel Crompton.

Eventually, the mill fell victim to an economic depression and was taken over by B.B. & R. Knight, brothers who owned Pontiac Mill, and its iconic trademark “Fruit of the Loom.”

Rockefeller interests bought the Knight plant and reorganized it as Cranston Print Works Company.