City of Cambridge, Massachusetts, Cambridge, MA
Advancing Kendall Square’s global leadership in innovation with new places for social and intellectual interaction
Occupying 200 acres of land cleared for urban renewal in the early 1960s, Kendall Square is a highly productive district for technology-driven research, with well over 10 million SF of research space. Conversely, the district until recently had fewer than 1,000 housing units, no notable public space or cultural facilities, and former brownfield sites. The City of Cambridge initiated this study with complementary purposes: to guide the rapid growth of research uses while creating a livable neighborhood that invites a mix of housing, work, retail, and culture. Goody Clancy’s recommendations are shaping more than 5 million SF of new mixed-use development, including MIT’s $1.2 billion Kendall Square gateway initiative and the 2 million SF Volpe Transportation Center site redevelopment.
Grounded in a public engagement process that included iterative conversations with neighborhoods, major property and business owners, other stakeholders, and city staff, Goody Clancy’s plan for Kendall Square:
- Intensifies the presence of retail and housing amidst expanded research to promote economic activity
- Replaces traffic-oriented streets with a new and dynamic public realm
- Includes detailed urban design guidelines and updated zoning to accommodate a more balanced mix of uses while enhancing the district’s architectural identity and making its public realm more active, green, and welcoming
- Devised height and density bonuses that encourage mixed-income housing, as well as continued research space development
IMPLEMENTATION
- New density and height strategies—increased within a five-minute walk of the square and transit, and decreased in areas adjacent to neighborhoods, to encourage mixed-income
- More than one billion dollars in mixed-use pipeline development reconfigured to achieve Plan’s goals—including addition of more than 1,000 mixed-income housing units and 2 million SF research
- Streets reconfigured as places that welcome people
Link to online documentation and news:
https://www.cambridgema.gov/CDD/econdev/aboutcambridge/kendallsq
