An effort to reduce vacant storefronts in Cambridge is showing some success, dropping 12 percent between November 2024 and October 2025, according to Pardis Saffari, the city’s director of economic opportunity and development.
The city’s Vacant Storefront Initiative aims to lessen the number of vacancies in the city, with the hope that making information about vacancies more accessible will lead potential tenants to reach out to fill spaces. It isn’t clear how the most recent numbers compare to previous years. Cambridge started tracking vacancies in 2019, but a city spokesperson said data collection is done manually and data from before 2024 isn’t available.
The city collects data on vacancies twice a year. Property owners are asked to provide an address, leasing contact, former tenant information and vacancy date for each vacant property. Those details are compiled into a publicly accessible database and interactive map. Most municipalities in Massachusetts do not collect and organize the data in this way, including Boston.
“This was an effort of concern from both the [city] council and the public about some of the storefronts that they were seeing,” Saffari said. “You could only understand an issue by starting to collect the data.”
There are roughly 90 vacant storefronts across the city, and more than 10 of them have been vacant for more than five years. The longest vacancies are not condensed in any particular area, though many of them are in major commercial hubs, including Central, Harvard and Porter squares. Those numbers and the overall metrics on retail vacancies and turnovers are healthy for a city with Cambridge’s retail presence, Saffari said.
The city is trying to further decrease those numbers. It instated a vacant storefront policy in June 2025, which requires owners of ground-floor vacancies to post leasing contact information in storefront windows to signal prospective tenants or put up “coming soon” signs and details about new tenants if the storefront is renovating in preparation for a new business.
Long-term vacancies
Perhaps the most notorious empty building in the city is the historic Harvard Square Theatre, vacant since 2012. The property, at 10 Church St. in Harvard Square, was most recently AMC Loews and was sold to billionaire Gerald Chan in 2015. Chan announced a major redesign to the building that would create retail and office spaces, as well as space for two movie theaters, according to GBH. These plans have not come to fruition. Paul Donovan, spokesperson for Mayhaw LLC — a real estate firm Chan owns — wrote in an emailed statement that “We remain fully committed to developing the site so that it is constructive for the economy of Cambridge.” It is the longest retail vacancy in Cambridge.
Chan was called by Cambridge City Council to testify in April 2025 but did not show up at any subsequent hearings, including one in June that three owners of long-term vacant storefronts did attend — two of which are still on the list. The owners gave a variety of reasons for why their properties had been empty over an extensive period. Tan Promploy testified at the June meeting on his storefront at 1906 Massachusetts Ave. in Porter Square, once Rod Dee Thai. He cited issues with bringing the building up to code and rising construction costs, as well as an encampment of homeless people in the back parking lot.
Thomas Cifrino, property manager for 596 Massachusetts Ave., was the only contact for any of the properties who responded to requests to be interviewed for this article. Cifrino provided insight on the eight-year vacancy in a building his family has owned for generations. The power transformer there is not strong enough to meet building standards, and the necessary upgrades would cost $500,000 and take six to eight months to install, Cifrino said. Tenants have been interested in the space, but many need a space immediately and don’t want to wait.
Updates can mean delays
“It’s a hard thing to do, but we’re working on it, and we’re trying to do it,” Cifrino said. “Trust me, I want to lease that space more than anybody else in the world.”
Safarri noted that a property might sit empty for longer periods of time if a tenant moves out but still has years on their lease. There could also be tax benefits that an owner might collect for a vacant lot, an incentive for keeping a property empty.
“Other situations, it’s not for lack of trying, but I think some landlords have just had harder spaces, or have not made some investment to make the space appealing for a tenant,” Safarri said. “In other situations, there are smaller family trusts, and there’s maybe some things behind the scenes that the family is going through that we are just not made aware of.”
In another attempt to aid property owners, the city applied for the state’s vacant storefront program last spring. The program provides up to $50,000 in refundable tax credits that the state distributes to businesses occupying storefronts in Cambridge that have been vacant for six months or longer. The tax credits provide incentives for tenants to start new leases and benefit landlords whose storefronts have been empty for long periods.
“We’re using a lot of different tools in our toolkit, tracking the data, sharing the data, working with property owners around the vacant storefront policy, as well as using the state’s vacant storefront program,” Saffari said.
This story is part of a partnership between Cambridge Day and the Boston University Department of Journalism.
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