In last week’s newsletter, I wrote about the evolution of the news and information ecology in Lowell through my lifetime. My immersion in that system got an early start when my father, Richard P. Howe Sr., was elected to the Lowell City Council in 1965 when I was seven years old. My dad, who went on to serve 40 consecutive years on the council, was just 32 years old when he was first elected. Consequently, many of his colleagues on the council and in local politics were older and had served when Lowell had the Plan B strong mayor form of government that also involved a hybrid city council of at large and district councilors and then the 1945 transition to Plan E and the at large city council that remained until 2021.

Later in my dad’s electoral career when changing demographics and voting patterns meant that residents of the Belvidere neighborhood dominated the nine-member city council, I asked him about the potential benefits of a district councilor system. He acknowledged that a district councilor system could weaken the strangle-hold that one neighborhood had on city government, but he cautioned that the reason the city got rid of its district council system long ago was that councilors became intensely focused on their own districts and lost sight of what was best for the entire city. The resulting council parochialism remained the mindset of councilors after the at large system was adopted and likely delayed the embrace of strategies that helped the city exit the Great Depression, an escape that didn’t occur until the late 1970s.

When I’ve watched city council meetings since the adoption of the current hybrid system of representation in 2021, I see what my dad was talking about. The bulk of each meeting is spent on discrete issues such as the need for this street to be paved or that crosswalk to be repainted. Rarely do councilors venture into broader discussions on the complexities of city government. This council-as-neighborhood-group approach to governance works well for the miniscule segment of the city’s residents who engage directly with councilors but only coincidentally addresses the needs of everyone else.

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Fortunately, the city manager and the planning department understand the need for a comprehensive strategy for the city. That was evident Tuesday night in a discussion of the future of the former UMass Lowell Inn & Conference Center.

To review, this Warren Street building was constructed in the 1980s as a 251-room luxury hotel but it immediately struggled when Wang, a global technology company headquartered in Lowell which had promised to provide 60 percent occupancy of the hotel as housing for its visiting employees and clients, fell upon hard times and soon entered bankruptcy. The hotel never recovered from that loss of business and struggled for decades until the building was purchased by the University of Massachusetts Building Authority on behalf of UMass Lowell for use as a dormitory and conference center called the UMass Lowell Inn & Conference Center (ICC).

Viewed externally, the university’s use of the building went well. There was plenty of activity with students coming and going to other campuses for class, and a steady stream of university and community events kept people visiting the facility. Given the rich history in the immediate vicinity of the ICC and the proximity of Middlesex Community College and the Lowell Memorial Auditorium, I observed that the “center of gravity” of downtown Lowell had shifted from Merrimack Street to the ICC.

The ICC turned out to be unsustainable for UMass Lowell, which walked away from the facility several years ago. The Commonwealth took over the building and used it as a shelter for refugees. That use changed within the past year when the state made the building a “rapid transition shelter” which houses displaced families until they find secure housing, usually a month-long process.

Around Labor Day of this year, I was in the vicinity of the ICC on foot several times. I found it depressing. The place looked abandoned, rundown and neglected. Whenever this building has come up at city council meetings, the city manager has been mostly positive about the state’s recent use and occupancy of the building, but everyone in city government understands that the current use should not continue indefinitely.

On Tuesday night, the ICC came up in a response to several past council motions about the building. The memo was brief, but remarks by City Manager Tom Golden provided a richer vision for that part of the city. He said that on October 23, 2025, he will attend a meeting with state officials about the future of the building. He did say that Governor Maura Healey has asked that its current use be extended to December 2026. While Golden hopes that it will end sooner, he seems confident that after that, the building will be available for redevelopment with significant input from the city.

But the encouraging thing about Golden’s comments was how they treated the area comprehensively. For instance, he said the city’s planning department has had ongoing talks with DCAMM (the state agency in charge of state-owned buildings) about the adjacent Lowell District Court site. He then said that he sees the ICC as two development projects: the first being the hotel itself (“ICC-1”) with the second being the surface parking lot adjacent to the hotel (“ICC-2”). Treating that parcel not as a surface parking lot but vacant land ready for construction is an innovative and encouraging approach. After all, the parcel is not needed for parking since there is a city-owned parking lot right alongside it. That’s another ingredient in Golden’s vision. That garage, the Lower Locks Parking Facility, is the “most underutilized in the city” according to Golden. Bringing more customers to the garage will increase the revenue flowing into the city’s parking enterprise fund and reduce the need to subsidize that fund from the city’s general revenue.

Between the District Court, ICC-1, and ICC-2, the city could see 300 new units of housing constructed in that area with everyone parking in the Lower Locks Garage. Golden said that some of this development could be supported by financing from the Urban Economy Forum which the city now has access to thanks to its recent Front Runner City designation. DPD Director Yovanni Baez-Rose added that the Urban Economy Forum “is making a huge difference whenever we talk about development.”

While this is all very encouraging, this vision is not without challenges. The biggest may be how to convert a 251-room hotel to some other use. A typical 350 square foot hotel room with its own bathroom might work as a studio apartment but it would be too small for couples or families. Adjacent rooms could be combined but that would involve demolishing non-load bearing walls, reconfiguring entrances, and repurposing second bathrooms. The lack of kitchens poses a bigger challenge. A kitchen needs new plumbing lines for sinks and dishwashers, higher powered electrical systems to run stoves and microwaves, and ventilation to exhaust cooking fumes to the outside. That kind of work would be hugely expensive and, since the result would likely not fall in the “luxury apartment” range charging pricey rents, the work would require government subsidies to be financially feasible.

Still, the ICC site, if not the building itself, is critical to the economic and social viability of downtown Lowell, so it’s essential that city government stay focused on it in the months to come.

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The Markley Group LLC appeared before the council two weeks ago with a request to increase the amount of diesel fuel it’s allowed to store on site by an existing license granted by the city. My September 28, 2025, newsletter provided a full account of that meeting and background about Markley, but to briefly review, such a request would normally be assigned a date for a public hearing without any comment. However, in the face of considerable opposition to Markley by neighbors, the council held a lengthy discussion and sent the request to a subcommittee for further discussion. That subcommittee meeting was held, and the matter was back on the agenda Tuesday to schedule the public hearing.

Attorney Bill Martin, representing Markley, asked the council to delay the date of the public hearing to permit Markley to complete some of the physical improvements it had promised to perform. But by a 9 to 2 vote (with Mayor Dan Rourke and Councilor Sokhary Chau voting to delay), the council majority rejected Martin’s request and scheduled the public hearing for the earliest possible date, Tuesday, October 21, 2025.

In urging a later public hearing, Mayor Rourke pointed out that Markley can simply withdraw its request with no prejudice and then resubmit it in the future, so that matter may not go forward on October 21st. However, given the sentiments expressed by most of the city councilors on Tuesday and two weeks earlier, if the Markley proposal does go forward on the 21st, my guess is that a majority of councilors will oppose it.

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On Tuesday, councilors also received reports on the city’s “maintenance of effort” agreement with the school department; an update on the 311 system; and a review of the Frontrunner City Initiative, including a city delegation’s recent visit to Geneva. All are deserving of discussion, but I’ll put that off to another day.