290-292 Main Street
Update
10/29/17
MIT breaks ground on 28-story Kendall Square tower featuring 450 graduate student housing units
MIT broke ground last week on a new 28-story tower in Kendall Square, which upon completion will become Cambridge’s tallest tower, that will contain 450 graduate student housing units. At 28 stories and 319 feet tall, the tower will surpass MIT’s 295-foot-tall Green Building, Cambridge’s current tallest building. MIT received zoning approval last week to construct buildings up to 500 feet tall at the Volpe Center site in Kendall Square.
The 28-story graduate student housing tower is the first building of MIT’s $1.2 billion, 1.7-million-square-foot Kendall Square Initiative development to start construction. Completion of the tower, located at 290-292 Main Street adjacent to the Kendall/MIT MBTA Red Line station, is expected in 2020. The building will also contain maker space, retail, an innovation and entrepreneurship hub and space for MIT’s Admissions Office.
The tower will provide MIT with crucial graduate student housing space, benefitting the university and its’ students as well as the Cambridge community at large. “Placing more graduate students in campus housing relieves pressure on the housing market in Cambridge. That’s good for everyone,” said Cambridge Mayor E. Denise Simmons in a prepared statement.
As part of the approval of MIT’s zoning for the Volpe Center site, MIT has committed to construct 950 new graduate student housing units, including the tower, which will allow the Institute to house more than 50 percent of its current graduate student population on campus. MIT is currently formulating plans to construct a second building with at least 500 units in the coming years, and intends to apply for a discretionary or building permit no later than the end of 2020, MIT will also work to add or apply for a discretionary, alteration or building permit to convert existing campus buildings into 200 additional graduate student housing units before the end of 2020.
