MIT pours billions into redeveloping Kendall Square in a long-term investment
Eight new glass buildings to be constructed as part of Kendall Common
Samuel Yuan–The Tech
Rarely do neighborhoods have rags-to-riches stories quite like Kendall Square. Left vacant during a period of deindustrialization, MIT’s backyard is today the epicenter of a bustling biotechnology industry. Lately, the Institute has poured billions into acquiring and redeveloping parts of the neighborhood, betting that its good fortunes will continue long-term despite recent slowdowns.
Once a salt marsh, Kendall Square became a center of industry known for biscuit making and piano crafting in the early 1900s. As a result, it was well-positioned to capitalize on the manufacturing booms of World War I and II. But these trends did not continue in the postwar era. Deindustrialization after the Cold War and an abrupt decision by NASA under President Nixon to drastically cut down a planned Electronics Research Center in Kendall — now the Volpe Center — left the region desolate.
Technology, though, soon began to transform the neighborhood’s fortunes.
Biotech origins
The 1971 breakthrough invention of recombinant DNA by Stanford School of Medicine Professor Paul Berg allowed scientists to deliberately combine genes from different sources, enabling the mass production of proteins like insulin. In short order, the technology spread to the East Coast. And, in Cambridge, biology labs at MIT and Harvard quickly began research that pushed the frontiers of the field — both scientifically and legally.
While the technology clearly had enormous potential to do good, residents of the City of Cambridge also worried about the risk it posed to their safety. Stoking these fears, Alfred Vellucci, Mayor of Cambridge at the time, highlighted sensationalized news reports of alleged recombinant DNA research failures.
“In Dover, MA, a ‘strange, orange-eyed creature’ was sighted and in Hollis, New Hampshire, a man and his two sons were confronted by a ‘hairy, nine foot creature,’” Vellucci wrote in a letter to the National Academies of Science.
These concerns eventually convinced the city council to impose a moratorium on recombinant DNA research and to assemble a working group of professors to investigate the research’s safety. In city council meetings that attracted nationwide attention, the public was captivated by back-and-forth dialogue between the mayor and the scientists. It was an early test of science’s ability to communicate and assuage fears. It became a textbook example for how science could prevent panic-induced regulation.
Ultimately, the Cambridge council unanimously voted not to ban recombinant DNA research, setting a nationwide precedent that would lay the groundwork for a stable biotechnology industry.
The industry reaction was almost immediate. Soon after the council’s decision, MIT Professor Phillip Sharp — along with Harvard Professor Walter Gilbert and others — founded Biogen in 1978. Biogen became the first company to obtain a license for recombinant DNA work, and it was the first biotech company out of many to be headquartered in Kendall Square after a move in the early 1980s.
On March 24, 2025, Biogen announced that it would centralize its operations in the first building of Kendall Common in 2028. Months later, on Sept. 16, 2025, a groundbreaking ceremony was held at the 75 Broadway site, with Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey, Biogen CEO Chris Viehbacher, and MIT President Sally Kornbluth in attendance.
MIT’s continued investments
Kendall Common is an ongoing eight-building construction project in Kendall Square, located behind the Cambridge Marriott Hotel. In 2017, MIT acquired the land for a sum of $750 million. The Common represents the biggest development in a long trend of MIT acquiring land for the investment and development of giant, shiny glass boxes in and around Kendall. Emblematic of this pattern are Kendall Square Sites 1, 3, 4, and 5, which were completed in the early 2020s and are all now either office or residential towers; Kendall Square Site 2, located next to Sloan, remains under construction. In the early 2000s, MIT also spent around $90 million acquiring four buildings in Cambridgeport.
The Kendall Common project’s ambitions are grand, from both a civil planning perspective and a financial perspective. In a planning document for the development, images of Rockefeller Center in New York City and Harvard Square are outlined as examples to emulate — reflections of city planners’ goal to transform the area from an office park to a more lively district. These plans include four office towers, four residential towers, a community center, parks, and retail space. Financially, the project represents a significant investment of over $1.2 billion by MIT’s Investment Management Company.
These days, Kendall Square is not only home to the offices of biotech companies like Moderna, but it has also seen substantial investment from technology and pharmaceutical companies. Businesses like Google and Amgen have expanded to Kendall — driven, in part, by a desire to share close proximity with MIT. This, in turn, has positively contributed to the health of Cambridge, according to an email to The Tech from City of Cambridge Director of Media Relations Jeremy Warnick.
“Commercial and Industrial markets significantly help offset the property tax rate for residents,” Warnick wrote. “Furthermore, the health and growth of our commercial industry allows greater opportunities for investments in the City from programming, infrastructure, new capital projects, etc. So, the growth of Kendall Square has played a pivotal role in the health and growth of Cambridge.”
But even as MIT continues to double down on neighborhood real estate ventures, it is becoming increasingly apparent that commercial investments are slowing down. On July 2, 2025, the Boston Globe reported that MIT’s investments in Kendall have become bigger “gambles” than they used to be due to increased pressure on university endowments and slowdowns across the life sciences sector. On June 10, 2025, the New York Times reported that Yale was shifting away from long-term holdings managed by private equity — part of a larger effort by some universities to move towards more liquid assets due to recent federal pressures. Moreover, according to a Colliers office space report from July 17, 2025, Cambridge had an all-time high office vacancy rate of 26.2% during 2025 Q2, more than double the historical average.
The Colliers report attributed part of this increased vacancy to oversupply. Indeed, in addition to MIT’s new investments in Kendall Square, Harvard is attempting to emulate the Kendall model nearby in Allston, adjacent to the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, with the construction of an “Enterprise Research Campus” adding more than two million square feet of new space.
Still, the cyclical nature of industry investment, the enduring reputation of MIT innovation, and the promise of growth from new technologies offer glimmers of hope into the future. Earlier this year, NVIDIA, the world’s most valuable public company, announced that it would begin building an “Accelerated Quantum Computing Research Center” in the Boston area by late 2025. While an exact location has not been publicly announced yet, NVIDIA expressed interest in collaborating with the Engineering Quantum Systems (EQuS) group at MIT. At the 2025 GTC March Conference in San Jose, CA, NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang conveyed optimism for the center.
“Working with the wider quantum research community, the NVIDIA Accelerated Quantum Research Center is where breakthroughs will be made to create large-scale, useful, accelerated quantum supercomputers,” Huang said.
The MIT Investment Management Company did not respond to The Tech’s request for comment by the time of publication, and an MIT website detailing more about the Kendall Common and Volpe parcel is currently unavailable.