Lowell, Mass., street, originally uploaded by The Library of Congress.

Lowell, Massachusetts has an important national legacy: the city was the United States’ largest textile producer in the 1800s, the birthplace of Jack Kerouac, and home to the invention of Moxie, one of the earliest (and most delicious) soft drinks mass produced in the country.

Lowell’s Tanner Street Corridor, the focus of the Area-Wide Planning Pilot Grant the city received from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last month, still reflects that legacy. The corridor is one of the few remaining active industrial areas in the city, with an emphasis on automobile and metal recycling.

Unfortunately, with the decline of manufacturing nationally, Tanner Street Corridor now also faces a number of barriers to economic revitalization. At least six vacant or underutilized brownfields sites are located along the corridor, contaminated by heavy industrial use and in need of remediation. At the same time, many manufacturing companies have been forced to relocate outside of Lowell because a lack of viable available land has prevented expansion within the city.