Just in time to be included on Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone’s cluster of potential landing spots for Amazon’s second headquarters, the owner of the long-delayed NorthPoint development has renamed the 45-acre parcel as Cambridge Crossing.
DivcoWest is building a speculative 430,000-square-foot office and lab building at 250 North St. and a 100,000-square-foot retail district in the first commercial spaces to be built at the site. Three residential towers containing 2,500 units were built under previous ownership.
Cambridge Crossing is approved for 2.1 million square feet of office and lab space and approximately 2,400 additional residential units.
While over 38 acres of the site are located in Cambridge, the Boston Planning and Development Agency this month approved changes to development on two parcels that are located on the 1.3-acre Boston portion. Those parcels are now permitted for 270,178 square feet of office, lab and retail space in two buildings, located on parcels G and H in the site’s master plan. Building height increases approved by the BPDA will enable DivcoWest to install mechanical equipment for lab uses.
At a NAIOP Massachusetts forum in September, DivcoWest Senior Managing Director Keith Wallace said the retail section is designed as a lure for big office and lab tenants seeking amenities close to their workspaces.
In his response to Amazon’s request for proposals for an 8-million-square-foot second headquarters, Curtatone featured Cambridge Crossing prominently among the list of sites in Boston, Cambridge and Somerville that could accommodate the tech giant. Curtatone’s “Amazon On The Orange Line” proposal promotes Cambridge Crossing as the largest infill development site in Greater Boston.
“The NorthPoint area is already home to EducationFirst, as well as beautiful green space and a water-side biking and walking path. Newcomers to this area will be stepping into a burgeoning mixed-use neighborhood,” it states.
DivcoWest paid $291 million to acquire the former rail yard site in 2015 from Canyon-Johnson Urban Funds and HYM Investment Group. It’s promoting the property as an extension of the East Cambridge life science and tech cluster.
“This is an area surrounded by the human electricity of innovation and education, where more Nobel laureates have come from than anywhere in the world,” DivcoWest CEO Stuart Shiff said at a ceremonial groundbreaking last week.