December 1, 2024

Tuesday’s Lowell City Council was brief with the public portion lasting slightly less than an hour. (The council then went into executive session but adjourned from there, so councilors had to stay longer.) Before getting to the meeting, I want to mention the sad news that Mill No. 5, the eclectic indoor shopping and gathering area on the fourth and fifth floors in the refurbished mill building at 250 Jackson Street will close next month.

It’s been reported that the owner of the Mill No. 5 space, Jim Lichoulas Jr., in his capacity as trustee of a realty trust, will donate the space to the neighboring Lowell Community Charter Public School. I assume more will be made public about this transaction, so for now, I’ll just give some background of the various entities and spaces involved.

Two hundred years ago Lowell truly exploded on the American scene. The first of the big textile mills, the Merrimack, opened in 1824, two years before Lowell received its town charter. The Appleton and Hamilton Mills on Jackson Street soon followed. The Hamilton Mills was named for Alexander Hamilton; the Appleton Mills was named for Nathan Appleton, one of the founders of Lowell. The building we know as Mill No. 5 was part of the Appleton complex. Constructed in 1873, the current building replaced one of the original Appleton mill buildings.

In 1975, Jim Lichoulas Sr. purchased the Mill No. 5 building and a collection of other mill buildings and related parcels from Jackson Properties Inc. for $8,125. The properties have stayed in the family with Jim Lichoulas Jr. taking over the operation at some point.

In September 2000, the newly formed Lowell Community Charter Public School opened in one of these buildings, 206 Jackson Street, which was formerly known as Mill No. 6. The school has thrived and continues to grow, which means the school needs more space.

A change in the ownership structure of Mill No. 6 occurred in 2004 when Lichoulas created a condominium in Mill No. 6. However, it was not the kind of condominium that we typically think of in Lowell. Instead, this six-floor mill building was divided into just three condominium units with one covering the first and second floors, another the third and fourth floors, and the final one the fifth and sixth floors. Each of the upper floor condos was then subdivided into numerous residential rental units. The lower floor condo, however, was simply rented to its existing tenant, the Charter School.

An even bigger change occurred in 2015. In June of that year, Lichoulas created a condominium in Mill No. 5. That condominium had just two units. A “school unit” which included most of the first and second floors, and a “commercial unit” which included the rest of those two floors, plus the third, fourth and fifth floors, which included the retail and entertainment space we all think of when we hear “Mill No. 5.”

At the same time, Lichoulas sold the Mill No. 5 “school unit” to the Lowell Community Charter School Friends Inc. for $3,835,000. He also sold the “school condominium” of Mill No. 6 to the same entity. That sale was for $3,680,000. He also sold a cluster of other lots on and around Middlesex Street to the same entity for $685,000.

Lichoulas retained ownership of the “commercial unit” in Mill No. 5 in a trust he controlled. Now, he will reportedly donate that unit to the Charter School. The businesses in Mill No. 5 report that they will close at the end of January and that the city is trying to relocate them elsewhere in downtown.

According to the Massachusetts Secretary of State’s website, the Lowell Community Charter School Friends, Inc., was incorporated in 1999 (at the same time that the school was being formed). Earlier this year, the corporation changed its name to Learn To Lead Foundation of Lowell, Inc. The officers and directors of the corporation are all residents of Lowell or neighboring towns.

So that’s some background information. If I learn more about what is going on and why, I’ll write about it in a future edition of this newsletter.

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Now, back to Tuesday night’s city council meeting. The agenda was relatively light and uncontroversial. Perhaps the most important news was something that typically gets the least attention: The city’s bond rating has improved. This means that when the city borrows money for big projects like the Lowell High School addition/renovation and the $175 million sewer separation project, the city will pay a lower rate of interest than it would previously.

Moody’s Investors Services has nine categories of municipal bonds, most with several subcategories. The highest rating is Aaa (“triple A”). Next is Aa (“double A”), however, within the Aa group there is Aa1, Aa2, and Aa3, with Aa1 being the best of the three. Then you drop to A with A1, A2, and A3. The final class in “investment grade bonds” is Baa which has Baa1, Baa2, and Baa3.

(The rating scale descends into “speculative-grade” bonds, also known as “junk bonds,” with Ba, B, Caa, Ca, and C.)

Moody’s upgraded the city from its prior rating of A1, the highest rating within the “single A” bond class, to Aa3, which is the lowest rating within the Aa group. In other words, the city was bumped up a grade.

In its written findings, Moody’s explained that the rating rise was due primarily to the “city’s commitment to strong fiscal management and willingness to tap unused levy capacity and raise property tax revenue when needed to maintain balanced operations.” Moody’s also cited an “optimistic outlook” for Lowell, mentioning the UMass Lowell LINC project, a number of new housing projects, and the city’s prompt adoption of a Transportation Overlay District (which I think means the MBTA Communities law that I’ve previously mentioned).

This is certainly good news for the city and a creditable accomplishment for City Manager Tom Golden and the city’s finance team.

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The matter of an elected mayor came up briefly during a report by the council’s Elections Subcommittee. City Solicitor Corey Williams told the council that he had been in contact with the attorneys for the plaintiffs in the voting rights lawsuit that yielded the US District Court judgment that still controls how city elections are conducted. Williams said that the lawyers did not reject the proposal outright, but asked for a substantive proposal which, in legal terms means, come up with a detailed written document that sets out the proposed process. Once they receive that, the plaintiffs will take a look at it and let the city know their position on it. The council referred the issue back to the Elections Subcommittee for another meeting, presumably to start drafting the process the council wants implemented. And “process” means more than this vague “we want every candidate for council to also be able to run for mayor” concept that’s been tossed around thus far.

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On Wednesday, the Lowell Sun reported that the Eliot Church on Summer Street has been hit with a $300 per day fine by the city for accumulated trash on the church lot. The church provides a daytime shelter with meals to homeless people who are the depositors of the trash. Those working inside the church say that their limited staffing and funding goes entirely towards feeding and sheltering the homeless and that they lack the resources to clean the church grounds on a daily basis. (See “Eliot church fined $300 a day for homeless services: Sanitation violation posted on church door.” in the Lowell Sun.)

My reaction upon reading the story was “there’s got to be an explanation for this” so I’ll withhold comment until it comes up at a future council meeting as it undoubtedly will.

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In recent months, the council has not been receptive to proposals to cancel scheduled council meetings, but they relented on Tuesday night and unanimously voted to cancel the December 24, 2024, and December 31, 2024, meetings.