Image courtesy of JLL

A casualty of brick-and-mortar retail retrenchment is being reinvented as advanced manufacturing and office space in Somerville’s Assembly Square.

Cloud computing company Tulip Interfaces and manufacturer DMG Mori this month occupied their new 40,000 square foot location, which fills nearly half of the former Kmart store on Middlesex Avenue.

The firm has been in expansion mode since August 2021, when it received $100 million in series C venture capital funding led by Insight Partners. Tulip CEO Natan Linder also co-founded Formlabs, the 3D printing company headquartered at 35 Medford St. in Somerville.

“They were focused on finding off-market space in Somerville so they could control their own destiny and grow,” said Robert Jangro, managing director at JLL. “[Linder] has built successful companies in Somerville, and our focus in the site selection was to stay in Somerville. They have the talent, retail and amenities, and the culture of Somerville is really important.”

The firm’s arrival at Assembly Square represents a throwback to the property’s past as a Ford Motor Co. factory before its conversion into a shopping center, but with a new high-tech spin on manufacturing. Tulip is partnering with DMG Mori, which has 14 production sites in China, Germany and Japan, and manufactures advanced equipment used in metal cutting.

Following Kmart’s bankruptcy and closure of the Somerville store in 2019, owner Federal Realty Investment Trust eyed the 100,000-square-foot building for an office conversion. The property was one of several sites in Somerville considered for relocation by Tulip Interfaces, Jangro said. But with life science expanding in many of the city’s commercial districts, the options for traditional office and industrial tenants are dwindling.

Tulip previously was headquartered at 561 Windsor St. in Boynton Yards, part of a proposed 1.1 million-square-foot life science development by DLJ Real Estate Capital Partners’ and Leggat McCall Properties.