Visionary UML project links Lowell’s future to its industrial past

When Umass Lowell Chancellor Julie Chen announced an ambitious plan to create a dynamic economic development zone that will bring high-tech jobs and upscale housing to this Gateway City, those who haven’t always been thrilled with the town-gown relationship over the years likely wanted to know if there was any substance behind that froth.

“We believe the Lowell Innovation Network Corridor or Lowell Inc or LINC, is going to transform Lowell in its economic development,” Chen announced in a Zoom meeting on March 21.

Lofty rhetoric or a thoroughly researched undertaking with identifiable and attainable goals?

Chen said the geographical boundaries of this $800 million development, formerly known as the East Campus project, have grown to include other sections of the downtown, from Middlesex Community College to the unrealized Hamilton Canal Innovation District.

To accomplish this vision, the university will embark on a three-phased building plan that the chancellor says blends industry, infrastructure and housing.

Two combined industry and professional housing apartment buildings will be located directly behind Wannalancit Mills on Suffolk Street, adjacent to the university’s East Campus. A similar structure will be built next to the nearby Tsongas Center. Both projects would add almost 500 new units to the city’s housing stock.

The student housing of Phase 3 will be constructed across the street from Lelacheur Park with 461 beds.

The groundbreaking for Phases 1 and 2 are expected next year, with a two-year timeframe for completion.

A project of this scale demands a significant financial commitment, and skeptics probably wondered whether a revenue-strapped state government could provide the resources required to realize this vision.

Fortunately, the genius of this plan — and the main reason why taxpayers should climb aboard this project’s bandwagon — is its reliance, not on public dollars, but private investment.

Wexford Science & Technology will lead this project with its expertise and a $600 million infusion of capital.

The company’s known for its mixed-use, amenity-rich, innovation-focused communities, blending industry/university community models.

While forward thinking, this Lowell Innovation Network Corridor remains acutely aware of the present, which means showing this project’s reach has already attracted businesses interested in a ground-floor opportunity — literally.

To meet that demand, LINC has launched what Chen has described as Phase 0.

“…So we created this Phase 0 where we actually are using space we have in Wannalancit Mills as a temporary one for some of these companies to get them further connected to the university and the city …”

And just a week removed from this project’s public unveiling, its first client company came forward.

On Thursday, flanked by local, state and federal leadership, Chancellor Chen introduced Draper Labs, the company that helped Apollo 11 land on the moon, as the Lowell Innovation Network Corridor’s anchor tenant.

Draper Labs will temporarily move a microelectronics division of about 50 people into university-owned space in Wannalancit Mills.

Thursday’s announcement represented the realization of a plan that according to Lowell native and Umass President Marty Meehan, was more than 12 years in the making.

“Some of the parcels that are involved in this, we acquired in 2010, 2011,” said the former UML chancellor. “This was a vision that was set out over a long period of time.”

That vision moved from the planning stage to implementation with support from Gov. Maura Healey and U.S. Rep. Lori Trahan, both of whom were in attendance at the morning event.

Healey said her administration would draw on LINC as a “marquee” example of innovation in the commonwealth.

The state was recently awarded $19.7 million to establish the Northeast Microelectronics Coalition Hub, a regional center that will advance the microelectronics needs of the U.S.

“Microelectronics is an example of a sector that is growing and that is key to our future and it’s going to happen here,” Healey said. “I’m really pumped about this. Lowell deserves this … it’s good for the country.”

Trahan helped bring the federal government to the table with the CHIPS Act and other funding.

The $280 billion CHIPS

Act, which stands for Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors, was passed in July 2022 to bring semiconductor manufacturing back to the United States.

“We’ve secured investments that will position the Mill City for a multibillion economic and jobs boom the likes of which hasn’t happened here since the Industrial Revolution,” Trahan said.

Draper President and CEO Jerry Wohletz said his company needs talent, especially now, since it’s doubling its staff of 2,400 in the coming years.

So why Umass Lowell, given this state’s wealth of prestigious universities?

As a longtime neighbor, we might take UML for granted.

But this enormous undertaking was built on Umass Lowell’s standing as a Research 1 university, which puts it in the top 4-5% in the country. It also earned a No. 1 ranking for a public university in this niche by the Wall Street Journal.

America’s Industrial Revolution began in this planned community almost two centuries ago.

And now that inventive legacy has been passed on to an expansion of technological innovation that’s destined to revitalize this old mill city.