Greater Lowell Stronger Together (CEDS)

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Download the 2025 Report (2,891 kb, PDF)
Learn about the CEDS Committee
Document Archive (Previous CEDS)

Plan LogoGreater Lowell Stronger Together is the region's 2025-2030 Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS). This plan's goal is for the region to become more resilient, prosperous, and competitive. It's called "Greater Lowell Stronger Together" because we’re dedicated to working regionally to create resilience, improve quality of life, and champion economic growth that fairly benefits all members of the community. This planning effort, completed in partnership with Fourth Economy, provides insights on how the Greater Lowell region can grow in key areas. After a year-long process including the input of more than one hundred unique individuals, Greater Lowell Stronger Together was adopted by the NMCOG Council on July 16, 2025!

Staff and the CEDS Committee create an annual report that provides an economic snapshot of the region and details progress on the strategies and performance measures in the CEDS. The most recent annual report is below:

About the Plan

What is a Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy?

A CEDS is a vital component of establishing and maintaining a robust economic ecosystem by building regional capacity – through hard and soft infrastructure – that contributes to individual, firm, and community success. It provides a vehicle for individuals, organizations, local governments, learning institutes, and private industry to build strategies that will best serve economic development in the region. NMCOG serves as the economic development partner of the Economic Development Administration (EDA) of the U.S. Department of Commerce. Regions must update their CEDS at least every five years to qualify for certain EDA assistance. In addition, a CEDS is a prerequisite for designation by EDA as an Economic Development District (EDD). Through its partnership with EDA, NMCOG develops the CEDS and its annual reports, and provides staff support for the Greater Lowell CEDS Committee.

The 2025 Greater Lowell Economic Summit

Photos from CEDS SummitOn Thursday, March 20, over 70 economic leaders and community members attended the 2025 Greater Lowell Economic Summit at UKG in Crosspoint Towers in Lowell. NMCOG and Fourth Economy facilitated several topic-based sessions, using Fouth Economy's Build Session approach. A Build Session is an interactive workshop to brainstorm, prioritize, and build solutions. Build Sessions emphasize the focus on moving past talking about problems and toward building solutions.

Build sessions featured great discussions about business engagement and development, strong places and towns, municipal capacity, and work and resident support. The event also featured a networking event with guest speakers, Demetrius Spaneas and Jeff Bush, a special guided tour of the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail by Marlies Henderson, and an "Agents of Change" happy hour at the end! We want to thank all our guests and our host, UKG, a provider of HR and workforce management solutions.

Prior to the event, NMCOG and Fourth Economy created topic papers highlighted the major themes and needs that were identified over four months of key stakeholder interviews, analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data, and other research. You can download them below, along with the notes captured at Build Sessions.

Document Archive

In 2014, NMCOG completed its CEDS Update for 2010 to 2013 (PDF), which updated economic data and reported on current economic conditions in the region. The CEDS Update also tracked the progress of projects contained in the Five-Year 2009 to 2013 CEDS (PDF) and reviewed and updated the priority economic development projects and strategies for the region over the upcoming years. See archival copies of CEDS documents:

Previous Annual Performance Reports

Previous CEDS

For additional information, please contact NMCOG at 978-454-8021.