500-foot tower now possible in Kendall Square with Cambridge approval of MIT Volpe Center site zoning petition

The City of Cambridge has approved the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)’s zoning petition for the 14-acre Volpe Center parcel in Kendall Square, enabling MIT to construct buildings up to 500 feet tall. Preliminary plans call for at least one 500-foot-tall residential tower at the Volpe Center, which would be the tallest building in Cambridge and among the tallest buildings in New England. The 500-foot tower would dwarf MIT’s 295-foot-tall Green Building, Cambridge’s current tallest building.

With Cambridge’s approval of the Volpe Center parcel's up-zoning, the next step in MIT’s development of the site is a Planned Unit Development (PUD) filing with the City, which will further define the buildings, uses and spaces of the future development. MIT’s preliminary plans call for approximately 1.7 million square feet of commercial development, including retail and active street uses, and approximately 1,400 housing units across 10 acres of the parcel. Four acres of the parcel will be used to construct a new home for the Volpe Center per MIT’s agreement with the United States General Services Administration (GSA), the parcel’s current owner. “It’s the mix of commercial, residential, open space, retail, innovation space, active street use, and community space that will allow the Volpe site to ultimately become what we imagine,” said Israel Ruiz, MIT’s executive vice president and treasurer, in a prepared statement. “We’ve spent a lot of time looking at vital innovation centers around the world and know that each of these ingredients must be in place in order to create a highly functioning, nimble, and synergistic community.”

The Volpe Center’s mix of uses will complement Kendall Square’s ever-growing innovation economy. “The Kendall Square innovation ecosystem has demonstrated a remarkable capacity to reinvent itself and evolve over time,” said MIT President L. Rafael Reif in a prepared statement. “In that long evolution, the federal government’s decision to keep the Volpe Transportation Systems Center here with a reinvigorated presence, together with MIT’s plans to redevelop the remaining parcel, point the way to a compelling future. In guiding the redevelopment, our goal is to make the region’s innovation ecosystem even stronger, creating a dynamic and welcoming place to live and work, which will attract the industries of tomorrow and fuel academic and commercial research collaborations — all of which will help Kendall Square thrive over time by sustaining its creative evolution.”

As part of the zoning approval, MIT has committed to construct 950 new graduate student housing units, which will allow the Institute to house more than 50 percent of its current graduate student population on campus. MIT broke ground this week on a new 450-unit graduate student housing building in Kendall Square, part of its’ overall Kendall Square Initiative development, and is currently formulating plans to construct a second 500-unit building in the coming years and construct 200 additional units within existing campus buildings; MIT intends to apply for permits for both projects no later than the end of 2020. Upon completion, MIT’s Volpe Center development will generate approximately $23 million in taxes annually for the City of Cambridge on a currently tax-exempt parcel.

View Volpe Center Parcel Redevelopment >>