East Cambridge Building Buzz
For a small neighborhood in a small city (105,000 residents), Kendall Square/ East Cambridge has an amazing 6M SF of labs, offices, housing, and retail in the works or recently completed. And while it's still developing solutions to heal the world, it's starting to fix itself up, too.
Cambridge development department acting deputy Iram Farooq tells us, compared to a previous development focus on commercial real estate (particularly life science), there’s greater emphasis on mixed-use—especially housing, retail, restaurants, and public space. Kendall Square is more outward oriented in building design and people’s attitudes, she says. Before, companies were so secretive they discouraged staff from taking neighborhood shuttle buses fearing the disclosure of proprietary information. (You thought reading on the bus is hard? Try spying.) Now, there’s a rush to collaborate and mingle on the shuttle, at the new public kayak dock, farmer’s market, or concerts.
Yesterday, The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard cut the ribbon on its new $375M, 375k SF lab/office building at One Cambridge Center in Kendall Square that's linked by a bridge to its HQ at 7 Cambridge Center. The new LEED Gold building (on land owned by Boston Properties) provides state-of-the-art space for 800 interdisciplinary researchers to seek therapies for the tough-to-treat conditions—from cancer to autism. This imposing structure will heighten Cambridge’s profile as a world center for scientific research, says Eric Lander, the Broad’s founding director. Of course, life science is still a major force in development here.
Pfizer recently moved 1,000 of its staff from five locations into this new building at the MIT Investment Management Co's $300M, 500k SF research complex at 610 Main St. The pharma giant aims to create a unified Cambridge R&D center that will work with the area’s flourishing biomedical community to deliver new medicines and to lower the cost of producing them. The new building is an additional generator of jobs and economic development, Iram says.
This 380k SF two-building complex under construction at 75 to 125 Binney St is part of Alexandria Real Estate Equities' $500M, 1.9M SF Alexandria Center at Kendall Square. Ariad Pharmaceuticals, which had planned to occupy the entire space, put its commitment on hold after it lost federal approval of a leukemia drug late last year. But given its signed lease, it’s under an obligation to occupy or sublease, brokers say. Word on the street: a couple of prospective tenants are vying for the enormous complex close to Kendall Square. This is a temporary wrinkle for the REIT, which expects to complete construction Q1 ’15.
With few office options available in Kendall Square around MIT, last year BioMed Realty started construction on spec of this 63k SF office/lab building at 450 Kendall St in Cambridge Research Park. Completion is slated for early next year. In keeping with the city’s emphasis on mixed-use, BioMed is planning to have 6,000 SF of ground-floor retail on this parcel (a pharmacy seems apropos), the last in the Park zoned for lab/office use.
More than just goodies, retail like Tatte’s Bakery & Café—and the housing being built by several developers—are prime drivers of the “astounding transformation of Kendall Square ,” Iram tells us. For the retail, there’s been an effort to bring in one-of-a-kind locally owned businesses that will give the growing district a unique character. This focus caters to the growing preference for the pedestrian experience.
