Harvard-Allston Task Force member Cindy Marchando (left) and Tishman Speyer Managing Director Michelle Adams during the groundbreaking ceremony for the Harvard Enterprise Research Campus in Allston on Nov. 1, 2023. Photo by Steve Adams | Banker & Tradesman Staff
Community activists, Boston officials and developers celebrated the virtues of compromise at Wednesday’s groundbreaking of Harvard University’s 900,000-square-foot Enterprise Research Campus on Allston’s Western Avenue.
Comprising a hotel and conference center, a 345-unit apartment complex and an office-lab building, the project was approved in July 2022 following a fractious 17-month review in which housing activists and local elected officials successfully pushed for a 25 percent affordable housing component.
Cindy Marchando, a member of the Harvard Allston Task Force that advises city officials on the university’s neighborhood presence, shared a lingering hug with Tishman Speyer Senior Managing Director Michelle Adams after the soil-tossing ceremony.
“I reflected back a week ago, thinking: ‘Will my great-great-grandchildren look back and say, do they have to correct a wrong?’” Marchando told hundreds of attendees assembled in a tent on a corner of the building site. “And I feel like 99 percent, we got this one correct.”
Marchando and neighborhood activists such as the Coalition for a Just Allston + Brighton pressed developers for mitigation to minimize the pace of housing displacement.
Mayor Michelle Wu eventually broke the logjam by calling a city hall meeting of the various stakeholders, Allston Civic Association President Anthony D’Isadoro recalled at Wednesday’s ceremony.
“I swear, those doors to the Eagle Room must have been locked from the inside. Because I don’t think we were ever going to get out of there until we had an agreement,” D’Isadoro said.
But the delays in approval may have cost Harvard and its private development partner Tishman Speyer their best chance of landing an anchor lab tenant before completion, a common occurrence at many Greater Boston life science developments in recent years.
Developers received $750 million in construction financing from Otera Capital for the project in June, despite a deteriorating environment for lab development as projected new supply outstrips current demand. Only two lab leases larger than 42,000 square feet were signed in the third quarter in Greater Boston, according to brokerage CBRE.
Tishman Speyer executives declined comment after the ceremony’s prepared remarks. A spokesperson said the company has not selected a leasing agent for the lab space.
Earth-moving equipment continued site work Wednesday as officials and community members gathered to hear testimonials to the project as a hub of life science research, thoughtful urban design and equitable housing development.
The affordable apartments will be reserved for households ranging from 30 to 100 percent of area median income. Along with the elevated affordability component, Harvard and Tishman Speyer agreed to establish a $25-million affordable housing fund to stem displacement in Allston-Brighton.
The initial phase is located on a 9-acre section of the planned 36-acre Enterprise Research Campus site on Western Avenue.
The 345-unit apartment building is scheduled for completion in 2025, along with a 61,500-square-foot conference center known as the David Rubenstein Treehouse. The 440,000-square-foot office-lab building and a 250-room hotel are scheduled for completion in 2026.
The site is located in an emerging new life science cluster in Lower Allston. Boston-based King Street Properties broke ground in 2022 on the 580,000-square-foot Allston Labworks project at 300 Western Ave., which has not announced any tenant leases to date. King Street Properties also is seeking approval for 87,000 square feet of prebuilt lab space and related uses at 287 Western Ave.
