The majority of all businesses located in the Downtown Core stated that their customers are Greater Lowell residents. Eighty-six percent of all retailers and 78% of all restaurants stated that a part of their clientele comes from this base. In addition, 67% of all restaurants stated that their clientele base is composed of Downtown employees, and many businesses noted that Downtown residents composed a portion of their clientele. Not suprisingly, very few (17%) of all Downtown businesses are composed of seniors, teenagers or tourists. These statistics bolster the fact that many businesses rely on Downtown workers and residents with higher levels of disposable income for the livelihood of their business.

Almost all businesses that responded to the survey stated their employees drove to work, and great deal of them stated that they parked in either the parking garage. Very few stated that they walked or used the bus to get to work. In addition, 90% of all businesses stated that customers drove in order to get their business – versus walking or taking the bus. One interesting finding from the survey deals with the fact that 86% of all retailers and 78% of all restaurants stated that their customers use a car in order to get Downtown. These responses bolster the finding that small businesses in the Downtown are a large user of the parking garages and a large generator of vehicular traffic in the Downtown.

Through the Downtown Plan Community Advisory Committee (CAC), Focus Groups, public meetings and community surveys, DPD was able to develop a list of the critical issues that stakeholders were interested in resolving the Downtown. These "critical issues" are defined as the issues that must be resolved in order to clearly and noticeably improve the Downtown. By unusual consensus, most members of the public identified the issue of "uncooperative landlords" was determined to be the biggest stumbling block to the improvement of the Downtown. Major issues identified by businesses through a July 2000 survey generally revolved around the quality of on-street and off-street parking in the Downtown. Major issues identified by residents included: traffic circulation, pedestrian safety, **.

For most Downtown stakeholders, "uncooperative landlords" is clearly the primary issue in the Downtown that must be resolved. "Uncooperative landlords" are loosely defined as Downtown property owners that maintain their properties but have a considerable amount of vacant retail/office space or rent out their properties to less than desirable uses. These landlords often are absentee – not living in or participating in Downtown or Lowell. Relatively few individuals own a large amount of the vacant space in the Downtown, and such space has been vacant for a long duration of time.

Although the Lowell Police Department has taken tremendous strides to reduce crime throughout Lowell, many people still feel unsafe in the Downtown. The key issues that make people feel unsafe in the Downtown fall into three categories: pedestrian safety (discussed later), lighting, and parking garage safety.

Although the City has been working to replace lighting in the Downtown, many businesses and residents feel that the Downtown is too dark during the evening hours. Businesses note that existing lights often do not illuminate streets to a level to make customers to the Downtown feel safe. This perception of a lack of lighting often makes people feel unsafe in the Downtown, and limits the number of people willing to walk throughout the Downtown.

In addition, there is a high perception of crime at off-street parking facilities. Data from the Lowell Police Department indicates that the incidence of crime in Downtown parking garages is actually extremely low. As shown in Table 4.1, data gathered for three Downtown parking garages indicates that a very limited amount of crime exists outside of a few motor vehicle incidents. Many residents and business owners note that their perception of safety stems from the quality of lighting or design of parking garages. Inadequate lighting through the garages, especially the stairwells, often limits the usage of garages at nighttime. The lack of security devices in garages, including security monitors, and the lack of pedestrian activity in garages makes individuals feel that they would alone without recourse if a crime were to happen in a Downtown garage.

The flow of traffic throughout the Downtown is a major issue for businesses. Over 30 years ago, the street pattern in the Downtown core was changed from a conventional grid to a "loop" system. The "loop" was designed to serve as a high-capacity, high-speed method of enhancing circulation around the Downtown. Merrimack, Market and portions of other streets in the Downtown were converted to multi-lane thoroughfares to encourage a better flow of traffic through the Downtown.

While the "loop" clearly increased capacity on Downtown streets, other problems regarding traffic patterns have surfaced as a result of these changes. Traffic counts in the Downtown clearly indicate that a high level of traffic exists in Downtown Lowell – especially on ** Streets. The primary reason for this high level of traffic relates to the fact that many drivers use Downtown as a "cut-through" to access other portions of the City or destinations just outside of the City. The limited number of bridges and location of highways in the City often dictates that many commuters must travel through the Downtown in order to access their final destination. In addition, a large amount of commercial traffic, including truck traffic, tends to flow through the Downtown. These commercial vehicles, which were not designed to fit on downtown streets, often create huge levels of congestion and create hazards for vehicles and pedestrians.

The ability of individuals to comfortably and safely walk through the Downtown is a key advantage to those living, working and shopping in the Downtown. Although a large number of cross walks exist in the Downtown, high speeds of vehicular traffic and large traffic volumes often limit the safety of pedestrians walking throughout the Downtown. In addition, the "cut through" traffic patterns in the Downtown, especially from commercial vehicles, often increase the level of pedestrian/vehicle conflicts in the Downtown. Focus group members often anecdotally stated that they felt that crossing Downtown streets is dangerous, life-threatening proposition. Focus group members felt that pedestrian traffic is not given enough preference over vehicular traffic at most Downtown intersections. If Downtown Lowell is to thrive as a place to live and work, the level of pedestrian safety in the Downtown must be increased.

There are currently 4,813 public off-street parking spaces in the Downtown. These off-street spaces are distributed between four municipally owned and managed parking garages and one municipal public parking lot. As shown in Table 4.2, the biggest user of these public parking facilities is Middlesex Community College, who uses over 1,350 public spaces on daily basis. Miscellaneous small businesses and residential properties, who use over 1,000 public spaces on a daily basis, are the second largest user of the parking garages. In addition, there are approximately 540 metered, on-street spaces in the Downtown. A map of all public parking opportunities in the Downtown Planning area can be found on Map **.

The biggest complaint regarding Downtown parking is generally not the lack of parking. Instead, many businesses and residents have stated that those unfamiliar with the Downtown are not aware of parking opportunities or do not utilize these opportunities. The lack of awareness of Downtown parking often leads to visitors to hunt for the limited amount of on-street parking in the Downtown. The lack of signage to point out parking opportunities ultimately leads many to underestimate the amount of available parking in the Downtown.

 Table 4.2: Daily Parking Usage in the Downtown Planning Area (2000)

All numbers based on monthly passcard data except as noted.

* Numbers averaged from monthly usage numbers - Based on days of use.

** Daily numbers for small businesses and residential properties - Does not include Tsongas Arena and LeLacheur Park events.

One of the Downtown’s biggest assets is the presence of the Merrimack River. The properties directly along the river have undergone a metamorphosis in recent years through the development of Tsongas Arena, LeLacheur Park, Lawrence Mills and the Lowell Riverwalk. Most notably, the Lowell Riverwalk has connected all of the major developments along the Merrimack River in one pedestrian path. However, these elements of the Downtown lack a strong connection to the Downtown Core. From the Downtown Core, direct access to the riverwalk and the Merrimack River can only be gained at two points: Boott Mills and Tsongas Arena. Many stakeholders have noted that additional view corridors or connections to the river would serve to integrate these functionally separate areas of the Downtown.

Since many types of businesses are looking for a place that they can easily "turn on and plug in," the availability of bandwidth and a high quality telecommunications infrastructure becomes a key issue that must be resolved in Downtown Lowell. While Lowell certainly has access to the large amount of bandwidth available on I-495 and Rt. 3, the City and the Lowell Cyber Initiative committee have questioned the access that Downtown Lowell has to this large amount of bandwidth. Unlike many "cyber districts" located throughout Massachusetts, Downtown Lowell is not located in close proximity to an interstate or highway.

Early investigations into this question show that most telecommunications companies have installed their fiber-optic and other high-speed lines just short of or circumventing the heart of the Downtown. Some firms that are already located in the heart of the Downtown have indicated some difficulty in getting high-speed connections. Although high-speed access is available to businesses through most telecommunications providers, this access is not readily available or easy to requisition. However, fiber optic lines are becoming more common and a rule of thumb for most telecommunications providers.

The Downtown is littered with mill redevelopment projects that have been "stop and go" over the past twenty years. Major redevelopment projects, such as Boott Mills, Mass Mills and Canal Place, are all partially completed. Often entire buildings of these massive complexes stand undeveloped. The renovation of historic properties, such as Wannalancit Mills and the first phase of Boott Mills, has driven the economic development of the Downtown in recent years. In order to continue Downtown’s economic success, the completion of these partially completed projects will be key to the success of the Downtown.

As shown in Existing Conditions section of this document, the Downtown has an inordinate amount of subsidized housing in its housing stock. This lack of market rate housing in the Downtown leads to a lack of disposable income in the Downtown that will support retail and restaurants during non-peak hours of the Downtown. Many retailers and restaurants in the Downtown focus on the large workers and student population in the Downtown, who have some disposable income, versus on the Downtown residents, who generally do not have a large disposable income. Through this situation, the Downtown generally becomes a "9 to 5" area, where retailers close their doors during evenings and weekends.

One convincing method of changing the Downtown from a "9 to 5" Downtown to a "24 hour" Downtown will be through the creation of additional market rate housing. A greater population of residents with a higher level of disposable income will create a higher level of demand for retail and restaurant services. In particular, a significantly higher level of demand will be created during evening and weekend hours, when the traditional Downtown Lowell market – workers and students – leave the Downtown.

Downtown Lowell is blessed with a proliferation of volunteer and professional groups that focus on the development and improvement of the Downtown. These organizations play a wide variety of roles: from social advocacy groups to Downtown development groups to professional business organizations. However, the large number of groups in the Downtown often leads to miscommunications or even a lack of communication amongst these organizations. In addition, some issues slip between the cracks where one organization’s responsibility starts and another group’s responsibility ends. While the number of groups in the Downtown is healthy, the responsibilities of each group must be clearly outlined to improve effective operation amongst groups. In addition, permanent and effective lines of communication must be drawn between various groups.

The element of the Downtown that seems to suffer largest from this lack of coordination in the Downtown lies in maintenance. Confusion abounds regarding who or which organization is in charge of certain areas of maintenance of the Downtown. While most maintenance tasks are assumed to be the role of the City, areas with cooperative agreements for maintenance have kinks to be worked out regarding who is maintaining important items. In areas where individual property / business owners are in charge of maintenance, large disparities lie in how properties and their surroundings are maintained. While many property and business owners effectively perform maintenance tasks such as snow removal, trash removal and graffiti cleanup, other property and business owners do a horrible job at these tasks.

The underutilization of storefronts, where traditional first floor retail spaces do not contain a retail or service retail use, runs at over 60% in Downtown. This underutilization creates problems such as: limiting the amount of potential street-level activity and pedestrian traffic in the Downtown, limiting the number of possibilities for retail location if storefronts, and creating vacancies in upper floors of Downtown buildings generally designed for office use. In order to improve the level of retail in the Downtown, the number of inappropriate users occupying street level retail spaces must be addressed.

Through focus groups, CAC meetings and surveys, a direction for the future of the Downtown slowly began to form. Members of the Downtown community ultimately established the following principles for the future direction of the Downtown:

This Plan will seek to transform the Downtown into a place where a wide variety of different Downtown user groups will create a continuous hub of activity. Each of these user groups – workers, shoppers, tourists/visitors and residents – must be provided with a Downtown that meets three basic criteria. First, the Downtown must be physically attractive and void of unkempt buildings, trash, graffiti and other unappealing features. Second, the Downtown must be a safe place at times, especially during evenings and weekends. Third, the Downtown must strive to be "user-friendly," focusing on making the Downtown easy and convenient for these user groups to access on a regular basis.

2. Utilizing Downtown Lowell’s unique cultural heritage, historic tradition and natural resources to generate new economic opportunities and growth in the Downtown.

Lowell has drawn upon its historic resources as the foundation of an economic development growth spurt that has transformed the heart of the Downtown. The Downtown must continue to draw upon its existing resources and character to drive the direction of the Downtown. Strengths such as ethnic diversity, canals and the Merrimack River must be utilized to their full potential in order for the Downtown to continue with this high level of success.

3. Making Downtown Lowell safe and convenient for pedestrians.

On a consistent basis, all of Downtown’s user groups should enjoy walking throughout the area. Priority should be given to the pedestrian in the Downtown over cars, buses, trolleys and other transportation systems. Pedestrian should also feel comfortable walking through the Downtown at all locations during all times of day.

4. Creating new opportunities for artists and residents to live in the Downtown.

One of the primary keys of the future success of the Downtown will be focusing on Downtown as a place to live. New residents provide additional energy and activity to the Downtown – especially during weekends and evenings. These new residents also enhance the market for retail and restaurants in the Downtown.

5. Creating an active, clean and safe urban riverfront that creates opportunities for recreation and becomes a spine of the Downtown community.

The creation of the Lowell Riverwalk has shifted new focus on the Merrimack River and its surrounding area. The Plan will focus on taking additional steps to reclaim this urban riverfront, which was once a center for heavy industry. This Plan seeks to make the riverfront more safe and useable by making it one of the main focal points for the community. New connections should be created between the Downtown Core and the riverfront to establish it as a focal point of the community.

6. Enhancing the positive image of and investment in the Downtown.

Through marketing campaigns such as "There’s Alot to Like About Lowell," the City and numerous partners have taken steps to create a new and positive image of the Downtown. This Plan will document steps to maintain this positive image through the enhancement of the physical environment, continued positive marketing and new public and private investments.

7. Developing cooperation and coordination amongst Downtown groups – particularly in the areas of marketing and maintenance.

This Plan will seek to develop a coordinated approach to the future development of the Downtown through the creation of new systems for the direction and development of the Downtown. Focus should be placed on the areas of marketing and maintenance where efforts are currently spread amongst a wide variety and large number of groups.