An industrial section of Cambridge linking Central Square to Kendall Square is slowly becoming an extension of the technology and life sciences hub, which has some worried the funkier Central neighborhood will start looking more and more like its comparatively “vanilla” neighbor.

 The prominent thoroughfare of Massachusetts Avenue has long been the public face of Central Square, where riders exit the MBTA’s Red Line or cruise in on bike lanes to find a main street lined with record stores, local restaurants and nightclubs that have been there for decades.

 One of its nightclubs, All Asia, was recently demolished, along with the rest of the 300 block of Mass. Ave., to make way for a new biotech building for Millennium Pharmaceuticals, which is expanding its Cambridge footprint into 246,500 square feet of office and lab space being built by property real estate developer Forest City.

 Millennium is one of Forest City’s premier tenants in its office, hotel, lab and residential campus known as University Park along Sidney Street, just off Mass. Ave. The pharma firm will occupy all but 15,000 square feet of the new project, which will be dedicated to retail and restaurant space on the first floor. Peter Calkins, Forest City Boston’s executive vice president, said the building will likely be completed by early 2016. Forest City and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are jointly redeveloping the property.

 The project has gone through several iterations on its way to approval. Company officials recently went for a third time to the Cambridge Planning Board for a special project permit. A previous plan for an adjacent residential tower angered residents who were concerned the buildings could cast too much shadow on the Jill Brown-Rhone Park on Mass. Ave.

‘Reasonable Development’

“No one is against reasonable development and growth close to mass transit, and to some extent it’s good and creates jobs,” said Bill August, a local resident and president of the Cambridgeport Neighborhood Association, though he was not speaking on behalf of the group. “However, sometimes proposals are too much too fast before there’s enough parking and other infrastructure to support new development.”

However, it’s not just the influx of new workers that concerns residents. There are also what August called “lifestyle and aesthetic” issues to deal with when sleek, expensive new buildings rise in an area that for years was more working class than white collar.

“Many residents moved here for the modest building sizes and open space,” August offered. “Some of them fear that if there’s not proper vigilance they could have 14-, 15-, 16-story buildings casting shadows across their front yards. But they also worry about the cost of homes, that new development will gentrify the area further and make it unaffordable for those families that have been here the longest.”

 One of the primary worries is that new projects, whether lab, office or residential, will focus on the big-bucks commercial side of the properties, and omit, or have too little, retail space on the ground floor. Kendall Square’s commercial buildings, while impressive for the research that goes on inside, have long been criticized as somewhat lifeless, especially after dark when the office workers have all gone home, because they lack a first-floor retail component to enhance and activate the sidewalk experience for passersby.

 “They’re just large, monolithic, plain vanilla buildings and tenants and not vibrant and creative, which is what Cambridge prides itself on. [Some residents] thought the Kendall buildings went up so big and fast that it lost some neighborhood soul,” August said.

 While no leases have been signed, the Millennium Pharmaceuticals project’s retail uses will provide “an extension of Central stretching down Mass Ave. toward MIT,” Calkins said. As for the office market in Central, “it’s a great location for those kinds of businesses that can thrive in buildings that, generally speaking, have a smaller footprint than in Kendall Square or in University Park.”

 Forest City’s Calkins, though, thinks Central Square is safe from being overly altered, because “no one wants that to happen.” While the character of Central Square is evolving, he said, “it will evolve within the constraints of what Central Square is, and that’s not Kendall Square.”

 The potential for significantly more construction in Central Square, however, has become a stark reality. In the heart of the neighborhood, the owner of the Middle East club and restaurants at the corner of Brookline Street and Massachusetts Avenue is mulling a plan to build up to 100 residential units on four or five floors atop the club.

 Then, closer to the Forest City project, Twining Properties, developer of apartments in Kendall Square and elsewhere, has purchased a portfolio including the Quest Diagnostics building at 415 Mass Ave. and five other properties in the immediate vicinity. Normandy Real Estate Partners’ partnered with Twining on the $32.4 million purchase in December.

 Construction on a residential project at Quest’s Mass Ave. property will likely begin in 2016, soon after the company’s lease expires at the end of 2015, and kickoff construction activity on the various parcels, said Alex Twining, company president. The reuses and new development along Norfolk Street, Bishop Allen Drive, Mass Ave. and Columbia Street will be focused on residential space, but office and lab tenants, and possibly a hotel, could also occupy a significant portion of the properties, Twining said. While the plans are still preliminary, there will be a minimum of a couple hundred thousand square feet of new commercial space. The company is planning to include retail space on the ground floors of all its buildings.

 There are limits to what the company can build on its properties. Current zoning caps building heights in the area at 85 feet. But the city is exploring rezoning that could allow residential buildings as tall as 160 feet, while keeping office buildings at 85 feet, Twining said.

 One block at the intersection of Mass Ave. and Norfolk Street already has offices that will likely be retained. Twining said he envisions those buildings including an operation similar to the tech incubator at the Cambridge Innovation Center in Kendall Square. The firm is also planning to turn one storefront into art gallery space that can double as a space where the community can gather to discuss plans for the project with the developer, Twining added.

 “What you’re seeing in Central is recognition that in and of itself it’s a very attractive space to live, work and play,” said Brian Murphy, Cambridge’s assistant city manager for community development. “You’re seeing that in terms of office rents. Rents at 675 Mass Ave. are in the upper $40s [per square-foot],” similar to office rental rates in Class B properties in Boston’s Seaport District. Central Square “has great retail and restaurant and amenities. The tension the community feels is how to balance that kind of commercial success while still maintaining the character and vibe that have made Central Square a great place.”

Email: jcronin@thewarrengroup.com