A rendering from a March 6 meeting shows proposed restaurant space on Palmer Street in Cambridge’s Harvard Square. (Image: Harvard Square Advisory Committee)

Harvard University plans to reuse the empty former Coop Annex building at 12-30 Palmer St. for new commercial ventures and outdoor space, part of a plan to make Harvard Square more walkable and engaging. One idea presented March 6 to the Harvard Square Advisory Committee is for the first floor to be used as a restaurant space that could have the facade open during good weather.

The alley is a blocklong shared space for business, pedestrians and delivery trucks famous mostly for having the folk venue Club Passim at its Church Street end; the Brattle Street end is less busy but has been a reliable space for buskers to set up and in 2018 got an Instagrammable set of angel wings painted on a brick wall by artist Jason Talbot – just stand in front of them and have someone take the picture. Between the cross streets are artful, if lesser-used, benches.

Planters, public art displays, games and more were installed in 2021 with the goal of making Palmer Street a more inviting public space, but on a $70,000 budget that didn’t match residents’ brainstorms.

The Baker Design Group told the advisory committee that it envisions more seating and a more welcoming space that includes the possibility of markets and other outdoor events.

“Because you have the pattern of the benches on the rest of the street, it’s really trying to integrate with that and not disrupt from the kind of moves that have been happening over time to make this feel like one integrated public space,” said Eric Kramer, part of a landscape team from Reed Hilderbrand.

A look down Palmer Street from Brattle Street on Sept. 24, 2021. (Photo: Marc Levy)

Designers hope to add windows to the second and fourth floors mid-Palmer Street; when they were used to store books – the building is extremely sturdy, due to its history as basically being a warehouse – those floors didn’t need windows. Another aspect of the design is to add lighting that will  make it more engaging at night. With no neighboring residential units, the night lighting will not be burdensome to abutters like some other proposed lighting projects, designers said.

Wheelchair access would be improved with a planned concourse, Stephen Baker said. The roof will be made into a green roof. 

The Harvard Square Business Association hosts occasional events such as outdoor movie screenings at the Church Street side. Designs propose a street performance area and event seating around Passim, where the club holds summertime shows.

Denise Jillson, executive director of the association, called the Harvard and Coop proposal “incredibly handsome.”

There could be problems from the alley nature of Palmer Street: It’s the back of other businesses. 

“What we have to do is really take a look at what’s out there right now. All you need is one dumpster that’s seeping dumpster stuff going down the street and it’s ruined,” Jillson said. Harvard would need to negotiate this issue with the neighboring tenants. 

Loading dock areas would continue to be needed – although much less than at the height of Coop textbook deliveries – but industrial uses could be limited to certain hours, with the rest of the day for other purposes. Jillson also proposed adding electronic bollards at each end of Palmer that can be raised to keep out ride-hail drivers.

A design needs to go before the Cambridge Historical Commission and get approval for aspects such as benches that spill onto city property; this preliminary design will continue to be modified before that next step, presenters said. 

A previous request to be able to add a permanent structure was rejected by the city for taking up too much space on the street.