One of Lowell’s first test cases to see if the city has what it takes to lure residents back to the downtown area has proven to be effective, boosting the confidence of officials who plan on moving ahead with revitalization efforts.

Faced with a sometimes-blighted historic downtown district a few years ago, Lowell came up with a plan to try and bring artists to the city by creating live/work spaces in vacant buildings.

To set the project into motion, Lowell created an artist overlay district where live/work space would be an approved building use. After taking ownership of the property at 158-172 Middle St., the city sent out requests for proposals and got developer Edward A. Fish Assoc. to commit to the plan. It sold the building for $120,000 to Fish Assoc., which converted the property into 51 condominium units.

“We’ve sold out all 51 units as of today,” an elated Albert Ewing of Peabody Properties in Quincy, the company handling marketing and managing for the building, said in an interview last week. “We’re doing the closings now, and we’re in the final move-in stage. We’ll be done in September.”

“This means fantastic things for the city of Lowell,” said Colin McNeice, Lowell’s chief planner. “This is a great kickoff for our artists’ district.”

Though it would be hard to tell with the fresh paint and new carpeting in the building now, McNeice said the Middle Street property was in a state of disrepair when the city handed it over to Fish Assoc.

“They were in really tough shape,” he said. “The buildings were neglected, and they were left open to the weather. There was a question as to whether renovating the buildings was feasible, and Fish proved that it could be done.

“The difference is unbelievable, and it’s a vital part of Middle Street.”

Today, 158-172 Middle St., the James C. Ayer & Co. Building, is known as Ayer Lofts. The 51 units there were priced from $79,000 for a small studio to $149,000 for a multilevel unit on the ground floor, the final unit to come under agreement.

In addition to gallery space in the building and an oversized elevator, the condominium units have central heating and air conditioning, European-style kitchens, high-speed Internet access and a security system. In addition to insulated double-pane windows and smooth-finish concrete floors, some of the units have skylights while others offer exposed brick and beams or spiral staircases in the multi-level units.

“For Lowell itself and the artists’ community in Lowell, this is great,” Ewing said. “This is the cornerstone for the new Lowell artists’ community. It’s a great opportunity.”

Ewing added that interest in Ayer Lofts came not only from people already familiar with Lowell, but from those outside the city as well. “We had a lot of people from Boston,” he said. “A lot of people are getting priced out of the market down there, especially in the Fort Point Channel artists’ area. We also had people from Cambridge and Waltham.”

Ewing said the pace of sales at Ayer Lofts was about on target with what Peabody Properties had estimated. “We really wanted Aug. 1, and we just about hit that. But to go from an empty building Jan. 1 to completely sold out in nine months is pretty good. We didn’t even open the doors to show people the building until mid-March.”

“We were optimistic, but as this was the first building, we were also cautious,” McNeice said. “We were competing with a lot of other cities, so we did have concerns, but we’re more than pleased. I didn’t expect them to sell out before they were finished [with construction].”

“In conversations I had with some longtime Lowell residents, they would say, ‘This is Lowell, do you think you’ll be able to sell all of these?’ and city officials said, ‘I’d love for that to be the case,” Ewing said. “We think the units were priced right for Lowell. We may have been pushing things a bit, but we may have pushed them to the next level.”

‘Next Step’
With the success of Ayer Lofts to boost them, McNeice said he and others in the city’s Division of Planning and Devel-opment are looking toward the future of other buildings downtown.

“We’ve identified other buildings downtown that would be well-suited for artists’ housing,” McNeice said.

The city will schedule a meeting in September where officials hope to meet with area landlords to keep them informed on their plans for downtown and to let them know of development opportunities.

Unlike the condominiums at Ayer Lofts, McNeice said the city is looking to boost the rental unit housing stock during its next stage of development.

“There’s been a lot of interest in rental space,” he said, “so the next couple of projects we will be looking for rentals. We hope to balance the market.”

As for Peabody Properties, Ewing said his company’s experience in Lowell has been a positive one, and Ayer Lofts may not be the only project in the city associated with the Peabody name.

“We’re at the beginning of the next step,” Ewing said. “We would really like to explore our options right now. Lowell is a very interesting city, and we think we could do very well in Lowell. There really is a renaissance happening there right now. It’s a nice little city.”

While McNeice is proud of the success the city had in working with Ayer Lofts, he realizes that there is a lot more work to be done in the ongoing resurrection of the Merrimack Valley city.

“This has been a great project for us, and we were happy to capture the market,” he said. “But 51 artists doesn’t constitute an artists’ district. But the fact that these units sold out so quickly is a strong indication that this is the right thing to do.”

He said there are “a few other properties” that the city has its eyes on right now for the further redevelopment of the downtown area.

“One of the projects we’re hoping to get off the ground in the next three months,” McNeice said. “Right now we’re looking for the disposition of the property to take place.”

On other parcels, the city is still working through the legal process of acquiring the vacant buildings through the tax title process, he said.

“We’re also working with local property owners,” he continued. “They’re our best partners. They have the space available and they’re interested, but they may not be fully aware of what the artists’ overlay district entails.”