Problem: Given the extent of deindustrialization since the late 1970s, many cities are forced to deal with a legacy of vacant and environmentally damaged industrial land. Urban economic development strategies have also turned away from manufacturing, towards attracting high-skill service sector jobs. Thus, it is of no surprise that planners, to date, have been focused on converting vacant industrial parcels within the city into more `residentiary' uses and deliberately directing public infrastructure investment elsewhere. However, the recent resurgence in manufacturing in the aftermath of the Great Recession and the transformation of many goods-producing sectors offers an opportunity that may bypass urban areas that do not preserve industrial land or view it as complementary to other uses. Research Strategy and Findings: To this end, we develop an index of vulnerability of industrial land that is based on location factors, neighborhood dynamics, detailed industrial trends, environmental hazards, and local regulations. We show for the cases of Cook County, IL and Mecklenburg County, NC how these factors can explain the conversion probability and how various industrial preservation strategies counteract these vulnerabilities. We use a logit model formulation with detailed parcel data and establishment time series data to derive the index of vulnerability. Takeaway for Practice: This index can be used to strategically plan for which industries to target and which sites to preserve as industrial uses. The statistical models suggest that traditional planning and regulatory tools such as industrial zone designations do reduce conversion risk and factors such as transit accessibility increase the vulnerability of conversion. We argue that local governments should be strategic about which manufacturing industries can be preserved at what locations using these tools. We also develop and demonstrate an open source interactive web-based tool that demonstrates some of the key concepts that can be replicated in other places.