The East Cambridge Planning Team, which has led negotiations with life sciences developer BioMed Realty for seven months, has agreed to amend a payout proposal that would’ve given $20 million in mitigation funds to East End House. The unprecedented payout is part of an upzoning proposal to redevelop the old, two-story building at 320 Charles St. into a taller site with more land density.
City Council members are expected to approve the proposal Monday, the only meeting of the full council in July and August. The BioMed zoning expires Aug. 18.
As a part of the deal, several other nonprofits – the Cambridge Community Center, Community Art Center, The Dance Complex and Cambridge Economic Opportunity Committee – are set to get between $1.6 million and $1.8 million.
Now, the proposal allocates $3.3 million to the city’s community benefits fund, while East End House stands to get $16.8 million.
The terms of the deal appeared to change Sunday, after terms shared with Cambridge Day on Saturday by East Cambridge negotiators didn’t reflect the higher amount now expected to go to nonprofits citywide.
“We understand that there are acute social services needs in other parts of the city as well, and have agreed to support a proposal to increase the share of the total mitigation payments going to nonprofit and social service programs across the city to about 23 percent of the total,” said Bob Simha, chair of the 320 Charles Street Task Force and vice president of the East Cambridge Planning Team, in a letter to the City Council shared Monday with Cambridge Day.
“The coalition, including the East End House, is sympathetic to the needs of other neighborhoods and nonprofits in the city and looks forward to working in partnership with community leaders to better address the systemic social service needs of our communities,” Simha wrote in the letter.
The change in the arrangement comes after the nonprofit leaders complained that the process was not transparent or fair.
“No solution will be unblemished here, but to try to right things a little bit is better than acknowledging a flawed system and not doing anything when you have an opportunity to,” said Erin Muirhead McCarty, executive director of Community Art Center. She and the other nonprofit leaders included in this deal said that they were unaware of the project until just a few months ago and had little opportunity to contribute to the conversation around negotiations. Only when they spoke up, she said, were they included in the proposal.
“We’re all very grateful that BioMed Realty understands the importance of investment in the community. They’re making a significant investment here,” Muirhead McCarthy said, and her group and others wanted “to make sure that it gets done right.”
Contention over process
More than 250 people signed Community Art Center’s petition calling for a pause to the deal in hopes of starting a more transparent process. Some signatories said the agreement itself is flawed in that it deprives nonprofits in The Port neighborhood of well-needed support.
Selvin Chambers III, chief executive of the Margaret Fuller Neighborhood House, said that he signed the petition because he felt project organizers needed to be more intentional with the process of developing the deal.
“If there’s more people who weren’t in the know than in the know, that’s a problem,” Chambers said. “Using as many platforms as possible, whether it’s social media, whether it’s snail mail, whether it’s emailing every single nonprofit in the city … there are multiple ways the information could’ve been distributed.”
But Simha said the process was transparent. He chose and led a team of 14 residents and stakeholders in negotiating with BioMed. This team included East End House president and chief executive Michael Delia, East End House consultant and former city councillor Dennis Carlone and East End House consultant and city planner Peter Crawley, who all served as nonvoting advisers. Delia and East End House staff did not engage in negotiations, said Simha, who criticized other nonprofit leaders for trying to stop the deal.
“They actually haven’t been successful in advocating for themselves as part of the normal process and waited until the eleventh hour here to do that,” Simha said. “And we understand why that happens, but it is unfair to characterize East Cambridge as taking more than it should.”
Darrin Korte, executive director of the Cambridge Community Center, rejected the notion that he and other nonprofit leaders have tried to thwart the agreement at the last possible minute for the sake of tearing another nonprofit down.
“We were cast as people who knew about this all this time and only made a deal out of it at the eleventh hour just to be disruptive,” Korte said. “It’s dismissive, it’s insulting, there’s no reason why we would even want to do that. We didn’t know, that’s the fact of the matter. If we did, we would’ve spoken up sooner.”
Why $20 million?
Delia said that demand for East End House’s services only continues to grow and that there’s not enough space in its 105 Spring St. site.
“The need is bigger than ever because there’s such a lack of opportunity and equity in terms of resourced individuals and families vs. under-resourced,” he said.
East End House has also had to shell out funds to address building damage over the years. From an upcoming roof replacement to stop leaking in classrooms and hallways to a sewage spill that forced the building’s lower level to close for five months, staff are met continually with unanticipated challenges.
“We are in a building that has an expiration date,” Delia said. “We’re trying to extend it so we can continue to find a path forward and find a viable alternative.”
That expiration date is between three and five years, according to a 2022 building analysis. By then, East End House hopes to acquire a new, 40,000-square-foot facility with features such as expanded programming and community spaces and ample parking. Construction, land and an endowment could cost $40 million. Besides the $20 million from BioMed, the nonprofit’s fundraising plan includes $10 million to come from a capital campaign and public support, $6 million to come from pledged gifts and $4 million to come from the sale of the current property.
East End House has already invested $500,000 to stabilize the building for the next few years. Delia said there are no other options if his nonprofit doesn’t get the full $20 million.
“We may be forced out of the city or forced to cut our programs dramatically,” he said.
Funding models
The debate highlights the need to address how nonprofits in Cambridge are funded.
Community benefits are arrangements developers make directly with community members. In exchange for public support for a project that may disrupt the community through such factors as increased traffic and gentrification, developers promise to contribute money to the community benefits fund if the city approves the project. The city has received $8.6 million for the community benefits fund since its establishment 10 years ago, according to a Community Benefits Advisory Committee’s executive summary. Of that sum, $7 million has been spent on nonprofit partnerships and Covid emergency and recovery responses.
Mitigation money is value created by additional square footage on commercial upzoning projects of more than 50,000 square feet. Developers kept this money until Carlone wrote a policy order in 2019 requiring developers to redirect these funds to a project’s affected neighborhoods.
There’s no particular structure in place when it comes to who decides how and where mitigation funds from the city are spent. Carlone believes the Cambridge Community Foundation could take that role and make mitigation money a more sustainable funding model for starving nonprofits.
“Do I think all the nonprofits should get money through the city?” Carlone asked. “Absolutely, and I think this sets it up. All the money can go to nonprofits most in need for infrastructure … do I think other nonprofits should get money? I fought for it.”
But those opposing the BioMed deal disagree. Tina Alu, executive director of the Cambridge Economic Opportunity Committee, said that it’s a matter of equity.
“If this kind of process keeps happening, then there’ll never be any more money in the fund, because there’s a work-around,” she said. “It certainly has opened our eyes to other deals that may be coming up, to make sure that they do fit in the community benefits funding.”
Muirhead McCarty said that everyone can agree that the community benefits fund is flawed, but she believes it can be improved.
“There’s an appetite for creating a better version of this community benefits fund, but it’s new-ish,” Muirhead McCarty said. “The first round of funding was in 2020 when Covid hit, and now it actually needs to see some more funds in it.”
Delia said that mitigation funds could offer a promising future for nonprofits but pointed to budget line items, partnerships and community benefits as solutions too.
“The resources for nonprofits are limited and what we’ve always advocated for is to create more robust pathways of support,” Delia said. “The more pathways of support for nonprofits, the better.”
This post was updated Aug. 4, 2025, with changed figures for a BioMed community benefits agreement.
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To make the deal work, East End House needs to raise an additional $10M, including “public support”, through a capital campaign?
It will be a huge challenge to do that after ruffling all those feathers.
While East End House is an important organization, I don’t think this process was well handled.
What is the basis of height, density and use restrictions if a simple cash payout to a completely unrelated charity can substitute for compliance?