A communication transmitted from Louis A. DePasquale, City Manager, relative to Awaiting Report Item Number 18-93, regarding Parcel C (Constellation Center) in Kendall Square

C I T Y O F C A M B R I D G E Community Development Department IRAM FAROOQ Assistant City Manager for Community Development SANDRA CLARKE Deputy Director Chief of Administration KHALIL MOGASSABI Deputy Director Chief of Planning 344 Broadway Cambridge, MA 02139 Voice: [phone removed] Fax: [phone removed] TTY: [phone removed] www.cambridgema.gov TO: Louis A. DePasquale, City Manager FROM: Iram Farooq, Assistant City Manager for Community Development Andrew Johnson, Assessor SUBJECT: Awaiting Report #18-93 dated September 24, 2018 regarding “Parcel C” (Constellation Center) in Kendall Square DATE: April 18, 2019 With respect to the above-referenced awaiting report, we submit the following. The parcel at 585 Third Street in Kendall Square, also known as Parcel C or the Constellation Center, is part of a 10-acre mixed-use project originally called Cambridge Research Park and permitted by Lyme Properties, LLC in 1999. For nearly a century, the area was home to a manufactured gas plant, whose operations led to soil impacted by coal tar and petroleum residues. The area had previously been capped with a surface parking lot to contain the subsurface contamination. When it was initiated, the 10-acre project, which placed parking below-grade and proposed a mix of office/lab, housing, hotel, and a performing arts theater, with ground floor retail and new publicly-accessible open space was one of the largest and most complicated brownfields redevelopments in the northeast. Zoning History The parcel at 585 Third Street is in the Office 3A (Office-3A) base district and the PUD-3 overlay district. The parcel is within the area of a Planned Unit Development (PUD) project that received a special permit (case PB-141) on April 7, 1999. The special permit authorized a 1.3 million square feet multi-phase, mixed-use development containing four commercial buildings, two residential buildings, and publicly accessible open space (including a boat launch at Broad Canal and a skating rink) in addition to the Constellation Center site. All phases of the project, with the exception of the Constellation Center site, are currently built. Cambridge Research Park Area

Page 2 of 2 Cambridge Research Park master plan: Ken Greenberg, 1999 The use permitted for Parcel C was a theater building, which is included among the approved retail uses in the project. In total, the amount of retail use (including theater use) approved for the PUD project was 125,000 square feet. As currently built, the total GFA devoted to retail within the PUD is approximately 40,351 square feet. The height limit for the Parcel C site is 120 feet. On July 2, 2002, the Planning Board made a clarification that the theater building on Parcel C would contain up to 85,000 square feet of gross floor area (GFA) devoted to theater and accessory uses. On January 17, 2006, the Planning Board granted a minor amendment (#1) to the PUD plan to increase the GFA of the theater/retail use by 10,000 SF with a commensurate reduction in hotel use (which was later amended to residential). To date, no other changes to the PUD plan have been made regarding the theater site. Tax Status and History 585 Third St, parcel ID 14-46, also known as the Constellation site, was conveyed to Constellation Charitable Foundation on September 27, 2002 in a deed subject to use and activity limitations as an arts, entertainment, cultural and educational facility for ten years. The property was classified as exempt over most of the following years due to the use restrictions and intended use as an arts facility and its use for public art display. The parcel was returned to the tax rolls after its sale to Biomed in 2018. Parcel C * Linskey Way Broad Canal