Businesses between Harvard and Arlington line okayed for business improvement district study

After years of advocacy, Porter Square businesses achieved a first (albeit small) step toward improving collaboration among themselves and with the city of Cambridge.

The Cambridge City Council unanimously approved $25,000 to research the viability of a business improvement district in the Porter Square area. If property owners approve, the district would join neighborhood businesses in a dues-paying organization to pay for projects and services beyond what the city typically provides. 

“We’re doing it so that Porter Square can always be at the table of conversations,” said mayor E. Denise Simmons, a sponsor of the policy order voted during a Aug. 4 meeting. “It’s a large area. It has a lot of economic opportunities … It’s really time that this has happened, and I’m glad that it’s moving forward.”

The districts are a way for businesses to encourage foot traffic through activities such as hiring sidewalk cleaners, advertising its offerings and holding special events. 

For Porter Square Neighbors Association president Ruth Ryals, the importance of a business organization goes beyond any one project. “The businesses from practically just a few blocks from Alewife Parkway to just a few blocks from Harvard Square have no representation with the city or anybody else, no way to pull together,” Ryals said in an interview. 

A study could begin in the fall and take up to a year, Ryals said, citing consultants who’ve weighed in over the years she’s worked on the topic.

Long-sought goal

Ryals has been pushing to create business representation for the extended Porter Square area for about 10 years. In the fall of last year, she thought she was close, working with a few business owners and a likely candidate for executive director. That person wound up taking another job, she said Saturday. With that, the latest effort more or less ended.

“So I said, okay, let’s explore coming at it from the other direction,” said Ryals, who watched efforts toward a business improvement district last year in Somerville’s Union Square. While she’s not wholly convinced by the model, she also doesn’t feel another attempt at a business association makes sense. “My own energy level didn’t extend that far, I have enough going on with the PSNA and my own life,” she said. “And we really need something.”

Economic and societal factors have gotten increasingly challenging for business owners.

The policy order cited “increasing quality-of-life issues that impact both residents and business” around Porter Square. Ryals mentioned frequent findings of needles on the ground, homelessness, shoplifting and sporadic violence in the area as key concerns that may hinder economic development. A business improvement district would get Porter Square businesses more say on how city resources, including police and public works, are distributed, Ryals said.

“It occurred to us our problem was much bigger, and that we possibly could solve it a lot better with something that allowed us to raise money, get paid leadership, have a little bit more muscle,” Ryals said. “I’m about policing. I don’t mean knocking people around and locking them up … sometimes just having the presence of police coming through helps out a lot.”

“I don’t mean to make it sound like things are terrible,” she said. “But they’re not going in the right direction.”

Straight to a district

At the council meeting, councillor Cathie Zusy questioned whether forming a district was the best next step. 

“I wonder if it’s premature,” Zusy said. “Shouldn’t there be a Porter Square Business Association developed, and then the Bid? Because you’ve got to remember, once you create a bid, you start taxing your business owners – which is an expense, and it seems like everybody’s hurting.”

Councillors Paul Toner and Patty Nolan defended the funding. “There’s no reason to start with a business association,” Toner said. “This is a feasibility study, so we’ll see. And if it turns out the answer is, gee, maybe a business association is better, that will clearly come out of it.” 

Nolan said it was “completely unfair” that the PSNA has had to absorb the functions of a business association over the last several years.

To Ryals, a key distinction between a business association and a business improvement district is the ability to hire full-time staff, rather than relying on the business owners themselves to do the legwork. 

“So much of [Massachusetts] Avenue is made up of very small businesses that, frankly, can barely leave the store in order to have a meeting,” she said. “It may be one person running their shop who’s also the owner.”

Lessons from Central Square 

Central Square Business Improvement District president Michael Monestime also thinks starting with a business association is unnecessary. While Bids can take a long time to be established, he said in an interview, they can be an easier model to implement.

“The associations are hard. Those are membership models where you have to chase down the local coffee shop or chase down the local bank and ask for member dues,” he said. “Bids, in my mind, are that much better because the revenues are collected through the taxes that happen twice a year.”

Toner clarified that it is property owners, not the businesses themselves, that would contribute funding. “The individual small businesses, they would get the benefit,” he said.

Commercial property owners would also be the ones voting to form the district. According to Massachusetts law, formation requires the signatures of at least 60 percent of the property owners representing at least 51 percent of the property value within the Bid’s footprint. Educating these property owners about the advantages is going to be crucial, Ryals said.

“Most of those small businesses are renting from someone. And in many instances, those someones are absentee owners. They may be living in Florida, Canada,” Ryals said. “They don’t have a day-to-day concern about the neighborhood, so it’s an education process.”

Monestime related to these challenges from his own experience getting the Central Square district approved.

“The campaign is hard. It’s like campaigning for anything, where you have to create a compelling narrative,” he said. Proponents in Porter Square will need to “win over people and persuade them toward paying for money for services they may or may not understand or feel they need.”

“Some of the best things are never easy,” he said. “This is work.”

Of course, the work can start only after a finding by the feasibility study. 

“This is just to do the preliminary investigation, research and data gathering to see if it’s possible, and what would need to happen to have it go forward, Toner said. “There’s no commitment the hard work would happen after we have this information.”

The order for $25,000 in funding for the feasibility study has been sent to city manager Yi-An Huang for approval. 

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