The billionaire owner of the long-closed AMC Loews theater in Harvard Square did not attend a City Council hearing on Cambridge’s longest-empty storefronts despite specific calls for his appearance.
The June 23 meeting came after a policy order by vice mayor Marc McGovern urged Gerald Chan to “answer questions and present his plan” for his vacant space, which has been empty for nearly 13 years; Chan has owned it for 10. The order was amended to include all 10 owners of the city’s 23 properties empty for five or more years.
“I was told, ‘Don’t scapegoat anyone, don’t shame anybody, reach out and talk and be polite,’” McGovern said. “I did all that, and they’re still not here. So at what point do we stop being polite?”
The council’s powers to subpoena witnesses was discussed after a March 11 committee meeting on the topic, councillors said afterward, but they opted to try invitations first. Harvard University was another property owner who declined the invitation.
Messages were left Monday with representatives for Chan and his Mayhaw real estate investment firm asking about the nonappearance as well as about plans for 10 Church St. In April, a manager for the firm said staff was working “diligently” on “a new plan to develop the site in an innovative way that will energize both Church Street and Harvard Square.”
City officials and residents are concerned with the effect on a neighborhood and streetscape resulting from long-term vacant properties. With few legal actions available, the council hoped to engage with property owners and enhance resources for small businesses.
“This conversation is not to be a light one,” said councillor Ayesha Wilson, chair of the Economic Development and University Relations Committee. “It’s really one to help to inform the council and the community around the vacancies and what more could we be doing to help support businesses for opening.”
City director of economic opportunity and development Pardis Saffari said property owners face challenges that can make leasing spaces difficult. That might mean bringing buildings up to code – which means finding a contractor and construction materials amid spiraling prices – even before finding a leasing agent and considering candidates to use the space.
“For most of our vacancies, it is not for a lack of trying on the property owners. These things take a lot of time,” said Allyson Allen, Cambridge’s senior economic development manager.
McGovern was skeptical, saying incentives and programs for property owners work only if they’re willing to engage with the city. “[With] the people who want to keep it vacant until they get the perfect deal, or because of the tax write-off, or they don’t really care, it doesn’t work,” he said, “because if they were interested in filling their space, they would have figured it out.”
Three owners share updates
Patricia Birchem, owner of a commercial space at 86 Kirkland St., anticipates renovations for a cannabis dispensary to begin in August at the second of her split storefronts. The dispensary was controversial when it was proposed to the neighborhood, with concerns from Kirkland Village residents about its proximity to a nearby nursery.
David Notter owns the vacant 117 First St. in East Cambridge, which is part of a larger development. He told the committee nearly 97 percent of its retail property has been leased, and he is working toward 100 percent leasing. “In the meantime, it’s not an eyesore,” Notter said. “Unless you’re looking for it, it’s actually difficult to see that there is a vacant space in the building.”
Tan Promploy of 1906 Massachusetts Ave., Porter Square, which has been vacant since the Rod Dee Thai restaurant closed in April 2019, spoke to challenges in leasing his space. He’s experienced delays in bringing the building up to code and has struggled with increased construction costs. In the meantime, there’s been trespassing and an encampment of unhoused people at the rear parking lot of the space. The owners were aware of drug use, fence cutting and property damage since the restaurant closed.
The owner called on the city for more collaboration with police and patrols of the property in an effort to address “root causes compassionately.”
“We are not here to criminalize homelessness, but the current situation is creating a safety hazard for both tenant and property,” he said.
Workers at Rod Dee Thai in 2019 said they felt they were being forced out. Another Thai restaurant called Ricen was approved for the space in June 2023. A sign for the never-opened Ricen was recently removed from the building facade.
Concerns from residents
Residents said they see increased homelessness and drug use at other vacant properties too. “They’re being lackadaisical about this,” Central Square resident Al May said of property owners, “and they’re making this community look very unacceptable because of what’s going on.”
David Aurelio, who lives between Harvard and Porter squares, noted the vibrancy of retail neighborhoods such as Brookline and said that in Cambridge there was “no excuse for sidewalk retail to be empty like this” for so many years. “It is hurting the City of Cambridge, and this is eventually going to catch up to us.”
Resident Theodora Francis challenged the council to better address the issue. “After this meeting, what will you do to these businesses that have not bothered to show up?” she asked. “There really needs to be a serious address to this problem.”
City response is limited
Some residents pushed the city to take properties by eminent domain – which was threatened against Chan for the site eight years ago. McGovern noted the tricky legal and financial processes involved, and the risk of lengthy court cases that might follow. The city is still in litigation over the taking of Central Square land called Vail Court for housing in 2016. Councillors were brought into a closed-door session as recently as June 2 for a briefing on Vail Court litigation by the city solicitor.
Other options are few. “We are sort of at our limits,” councillor Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler said. “The difficulty of this conversation is, at least part of it, that we don’t have more powers on the municipal level.”
The city solicitor added that much of what the city can do is set by state law and would likely involve bringing a criminal complaint to district court or imposing a fine – but that has a cap of $300 a day, and Chan is a billionaire. Fines would have to be imposed uniformly, and the process lacks nuance in dealing with local businesses.
“We wouldn’t have the ability to say, ‘This one’s a real estate trust, this one’s a local family trust’ and determine who to enforce based on what the business is or what the ownership is,” she said.
Future efforts
Economic Opportunity and Development staffers said they would keep providing resources to local businesses and property owners, including workshops, education materials and data collection. City councillors recommended streamlining the process for bringing buildings up to code and making inspection processes faster.
“It’s not to say the city staff isn’t working really hard, but often we are not working smart and we’re not working with the urgency that we need,” councilor Patty Nolan said.
Councilors emphasized the need for property owners to work with the city, or they will consider harsher responses. “You’re kind of leaving us with no choice but to think about what are the heavier things that we can do,” Wilson said. “What are the next steps that we can do, recognizing that some of those next steps may be costly, some of those next steps may be even a bigger challenge.”
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“Harvard University was another property owner who declined the invitation.” So, Cambridge rallied to speak up for Harvard as the wanna-be dictator attacked Harvard (and took money away from life-saving research). A number of City Councilors were there. And Harvard did not send a representative?
Not a good look, Harvard.
These days, Harvard needs all the friends they can get.
Trying to haul property owners before a bunch of performative politicians is certainly no way to get anything effective done.
The answer here is clearly the failure of the City’s so called Economic Opportunity Department, which has always been focused on its own narrow agenda items, not small business concerns. That was made public during the 2023 survey of small businesses.
This disconnect is most evident, as one speaker pointed out, by noting the thriving small business community in Brookline. A city facing the same constraints as ours, with much higher tax rates.
Until there is an over haul to the current Economic Opportunity Department nothing here will change. Why not start with an analysis of the impacts from the $5.8m in ARPA funds for small businesses?
McGovern & Co are simultaneously too hard and too soft on Gerald Chan.
McGovern is too hard when he asserts that the best way to engage him is to haul him into a public meeting for embarrassment before an elevated panel of 9 inquisitors playing to a live audience. Of course Chan declines that “gracious invitation”. Two or three councillors should visit Chan at his office to discuss Mayhew’s plan and timeline.
Then McGovern is too soft when he shies away from eminent domain–that is the only real threat to a billionaire. If Mr Chan does not want to engage in an aggressive process to fill the space, we should engage our lawyers