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Thursday, March 11, 2010
Cambridge
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Last year this list ran with the warning that an enumeration of the top 10 employers in Cambridge was “a moving target.” It turns out the target doesn’t rove as much one would think, but some movement resulted from — get this — companies adding jobs.
East Cambridge Business Association president Carl Fantasia of the New Deal Fish Market, Maria Gomes of East Cambridge Savings Bank and Chris Kosinski of the East Side Bar & Grille attend the association’s first evening networking event Feb. 25 at the Grille.With a neighbors group presenting a masterful plan for Lechmere Square and a new business association hosting its first evening networking event, both in the past week, it may be time for East Cambridge to cast off its underdog status.
There were 49 businesses created or renewed in February — all but eight new businesses. It’s an unusually high percent of new businesses — 84 percent, compared with 67 percent in January.
A sign in the Somerville Avenue window of the Uno Chicago Grill in Porter Square, Cambridge, announces the restaurant’s closing and reminds diners another store in the chain remains in Harvard Square. (Photo: Marc Levy)The Uno Chicago Grill in Porter Square closed for good Monday, part of the Chapter 11 bankruptcy Uno Restaurant Holdings Corp. filed for in January. The West Roxbury company is still said to have about 160 restaurants, including one in Harvard Square.
A temporary Venture Café, meant to be a meeting place in Kendall Square for the tech and venture capital crowd, has opened — but it’s not so much in the square as over it.
TD Bank is coming to Central Square, with the last impediment ending Thursday with a unanimous vote by the Board of Zoning Appeal.
A crowd gathers Tuesday at the Cambridge Innovation Center to hear Gov. Deval Patrick speak on several overlapping initiatives reinforcing Massachusetts as a good place for entrepreneurs and business in general. A groundbreaking for a center expansion was on the list. (Photo: Eugena Ossi/Governor’s Office) The Cambridge Innovation Center business incubator would have made a splash anyway in announcing a near-doubling in size by summer — with 240 tenants, it’s already reputed to be the largest grouping of start-up companies on the East Coast — but Tuesday its leaders were able to do it with Gov. Deval Patrick on hand.
As an art store, video store and florist closes, more cuisine finds its way into Central Square.
Next week sees another step in TD Bank opening a branch in Central Square, in the Massachusetts Avenue space that used to house The Gap. Despite unhappiness over the coming of another bank, the move takes 7,000 square feet of empty real estate off the market just as another several thousand open up.
Cambridge Rindge & Latin School, Cambridge’s high school, is in the midst of $85 million in renovations, aided by a $32.2 million bond sale Tuesday.The city’s $32.2 million bond sale went through as expected Tuesday, budget director David Kale said, providing $25 million for high school renovations and about $7.2 million — the remainder — for sewer improvements.
The new top 10 employers in Cambridge — and how to contact them | 
TD Bank will join at least eight other banks in Central Square, as seen in this Google map.
