Lab building that would overlook Porter Square to be introduced to residents at online meeting (Updated)
Two homes and a former printing company in Porter Square are due to be replaced by a four-story laboratory office building, topped by a fifth floor of mechanicals.
The project, at 32-44 White St., Somerville, would be across the street from the Porter Square Shopping Center, with its Star Market, CVS and other services. An online information meeting with SGL Development is planned for 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, said Ward 5 city councilor Beatriz Gómez Mouakad, herself an architect and construction project manager who once worked in Cambridge. Information about the meeting, including a Zoom link, is here.
The building would replace Fleming Printing at 40 White St., a squat, cinder block building holding a business identified as permanently closed, and the single-family homes on either side of it: 32 White St., built in 1844 and last sold in 2007 for $450,000; and 44 White St., a rustically wood-walled home built in 1900. (The last exchange of the property recorded by Somerville assessors was for $1 in 2006.)
The Fleming building and home at 32 White St. have a common owner, Gary Shea, according to Somerville records, though each name other owners or trustees.
Though the project would take away two residences, the city of Somerville needs to strengthen its commercial base to build more housing, Mouakad said Wednesday – and in the run-up to the developer meeting, she has heard little to no neighbor and Somerville community opposition to the proposed project.
“I have to create revenue to build the housing, particularly affordable housing,” Mouakad said. “Cambridge has three nonprofit developers, and they’re producing at a much higher scale than we are – Just A Start alone has 16 projects right now. Cities need revenue to support their infrastructure and to subsidize affordable housing, and there’s no other way around it. Boston is like 50 percent commercial and has 20 percent deed-restricted properties. Cambridge is at 15 percent. We’re at 10 percent and our goal should be, at a minimum, 20 percent. How do I get to that goal?”
SGL is led by Adam Siegel, of Cambridge, where its website says the company has developed $50 million worth of real estate over the past five years. The site suggests the company, based on Memorial Drive in Cambridgeport, has been focused on residential developments.
“Labs will take over the city”
Cambridge councillor Dennis Carlone has been working since March 2021 on zoning to limit labs and some technical offices from being built in low-density retail districts, but to little effect. A second lab building is planned by the commercial real estate firm Bulfinch for near Porter Square at 1740 Massachusetts Ave. that would see the razing of a Walgreens, Keezer’s secondhand clothing shop and Simon’s Coffee Shop, he said in a March 17 committee hearing and Aug. 1 meeting of the council.
“Labs will take over the city,” Carlone said Aug. 1. “We have more labs per capita now than any other city in the country. I calculate that we have 20 times the amount of lab square footage per capita as compared with Boston … we have to begin putting labs where they belong, and not where we don’t want them.”
Bulfinch’s purchase of the Cambridge building was made in 2018, records show. (Here too, the price is given as $1.) Though it has construction dating back to 1894, assessors say it is in overall superior condition.
Labs are now allowed as of right, but Carlone said he would prefer to see housing go up.
“We all want housing,” Carlone said, but his zoning proposal had little support under former city manager Louis A. DePasquale. Carlone said he hoped to try again in the fall for a policy that promotes affordable housing ahead of new lab space in mostly residential areas such as around Porter Square.
Requests for more information on the White Street project were left Tuesday with Siegel, the developer. An email seeking information on the site in Cambridge was left Tuesday with Bulfinch.
This post was updated Wednesday with comments from Somerville Ward 5 city councilor Beatriz Gómez Mouakad.
The Council wants labs. They don’t say that but they zone for it, increase incentive fees forcing it, and create an environment where only lab uses make financial sense. Carlone’s proposal would make every lab in the city non-conforming and isn’t rooted in reality … but sounds nice to folks who do not understand the implications.
As long as they provide adequate parking, I’m ok with it.
This is hideous! Bono hopes that all the phonies squawking disingenuously about the “housing crisis” show up to demand housing here (if anything…) Incidentally, “lab-tech” is a bigger trip-generator than residential. In Central Square, Cambridge, the argument has always been that more housing would help support a more vibrant retail environment. Why is that not true here??
Looks nice and ugly! I’m sure will improve the parking situation as well as housing crisis.
Bono understands the dilemma in which the administration and government of Somerville seem to find themselves. Does the only result really have to be the monstrosity now going up in Union Square, about which everyone there seem to be shocked and horrified?? Is this not a dog chasing it’s tail?? The more lab-tech, the higher the prices for – especially nearby – housing, the more housing is needed, and around and around we go… The PUBLIC PROVISION OF HOUSING should be a possible solution, but apparently we’re not allowed to consider this proven pathway to more “social housing” in a world where only “neoliberal market” [non-]solutions are “on the table.”
“Labs will take over the city,” Carlone said Aug. 1. “We have more labs per capita now than any other city in the country.
Don’t complain in any way Councillor.
You don’t have an adequate PILOT program which would require that Harvard and MIT pay their fair share of taxes. Why is that? Just tell the universities that the Cambridge Fire Department will not be available to Harvard, and just as Harvard has its own police force, it will now have to have its own fire department. The university will jump to pay up under PILOT.
Because Harvard and MIT don’t pay their fair of taxes, the money that the City Council profligately spends, has to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is from labs.
Yes, Tax the rich. Harvard and MIT have billions in endowments and pay their executives and sports coaches in the millions, but refuse to help pay for the local infrastructure that undergirds and supports them. Their populations overwhelm the housing supply while their development encroachments tear up the streets and displaces the working-class taxpayers. Let’s spurn their voluntary “charitable donations ” and instead demand they pay their taxes and contribute the capital gains from their endowments.
Eliza, those “charitable donations’ you are turning your nose up at are keeping your taxes low if you are a homeowner, or keeps your rent lower if you’re a tenant. Why would you ask Harvard to contribute their capital gains? Would you ask Starbucks?
Here’s the text of the most recent Harvard PILOT agreement. They could easily afford to do more, with an endowment now on the order of 50 Billion, but the real problem seems to be the length of the agreement. That’s up to the city administration, a notoriously undemocratic entity. The main contribution MIT could make would be to house all of their thousands of grad students and post-docs on land they already own at affordable rents in buildings which are attractive to their students and research assistants. They could also agree to take as many Cambridge Rindge and Latin graduates as Harvard do, assuming they are sufficiently interested and reasonably qualified, which I have heard is not necessarily always the case.
https://www.cambridgema.gov/-/media/Files/CDD/Planning/TownGown/pilot_agreements/pilot_agreement_harvard_2004.pdf
Yes, both schools could do more, but I’m concerned that the conservative drumbeat to demonize schooling and education will lead to the prioritization of capitalism and “job creators”. This was exactly what Reagan wanted when he said he wouldn’t support college students who demonstrated against him.
Not sure Bono knows what you mean by “conservative drumbeat.” Conservatives Bono knows value education at least as much as “liberals,” particularly excellence in education. Of course, not everybody has to go to college. Learning a craft or trade might be more gratifying and remunerative than getting a degree in “cultural studies” and working at Starbucks. Public higher education should be tuition free, like it used to be in New York, for example. Bono’s not really all that worried about Harvard or MIT, where the current president, Reif, made a point of warmly (worm-ly?) welcoming Mohammed bin Salman in a visit there right around the same time Jamal Khassoghi was getting chopped up into little bits by some of the very same goons who accompanied ‘MBS’ at MIT. These hypocritical filthy rich institutions need to lean up their acts. (They won’t. Not unless we make them. Good luck with that.)
That should be “clean up their acts…” “Lean,”they’re not.