On Thursday, July 9, Lawrence Mayor Daniel Rivera kicked off the Merrimack Street Land Use Planning meeting, where neighbors, businesses and land owners heard from city planners and architects about the enhancing of Merrimack Street, from the Route I-495 overpass to South Broadway.
“Merrimack Street is the southern entry point to an important commercial corridor which in recent years have benefitted from successful revitalization of formerly vacant mill buildings, including 2.6 million square feet of mills redevelopment by Lupoli Companies and loft housing development of 200 units by MassInnovation”, reads www.SouthCanalDistrict.com
Phase 1 of the project is scheduled to start sometime in August 2015 at a cost of $3.9M provided by a grant from the state’s MassWorks Program. The work will improve the corridor from I-495 overpass to Union Street.
Phase 2 would include the rest of the Merrimack Street which runs from Union Street to South Broadway. This area is not as impressive as the previous one but includes large buildings housing hundreds of people such as the one located at One Parker Street, home of CLASS which since 1976 has been serving individuals with disabilities from around Greater Lawrence and the Olde Train Station across CLASS has been privately owned since about 1959 that houses offices and retail space.
And the most critical one, the Merrimack Paper Mill, with a long, troubled history and a major fire on January on 2014, forever in process of being razed despite the help received from the Environmental Protection Agency as announced by the Mayor in our edition #445 of June 8th, 2014. And let’s not forget that the original owner still owes the city millions in back taxes dating back to 2002.
In our opinion, Phase 2 should take precedence to PHASE 1. The latter area that covers doesn’t need anything; everything has been done there. If anything, a few trees and flowers should be planted.
Is the area comprised between Union Street and South Broadway that needs immediate attention if we are really interested in attracting new investors who could bring employment opportunities, otherwise we will have to wait forever for another gift.
But of course, we think as investors do; we are not politicians!
