A new face for Kendall Square

The university’s pitch — 100,000 square feet of new retail development, 1 million square feet of office and academic space, and 120,000 square feet of new residences — is the most ambitious plan to reinvent Kendall Square in a half century. Fifty years ago, Cambridge officials took a decaying industrial neighborhood, ticketed it for urban renewal, and laid plans to fill the acreage next to MIT with new (and highly taxable) offices and high-tech space. That vision reshaped Kendall, not to mention the state’s then-flagging economy. But now that vision is badly in need of refinement.

The practice of constructing vibrant urban spaces has evolved greatly since Kendall Square was slated for clearing. Oversized super-blocks and monolithic-use zoning have long since been discredited. Walkable streets and the integration of commercial and residential uses aren’t just development best practices; they’re acknowledged as common sense. The MIT rezoning plan aims to cover up the most egregious of the urban renewal era’s sins, while putting a modern face on Kendall Square.

The stretch of Main Street around the Kendall MBTA station is the square’s geographic hub, and also its most drab and lifeless-looking stretch. It’s dominated by blank brick walls, parking lots and loading docks. The rezoning plan aims to transform the space into a hub for shopping and dining. It aims to harness the after-work vibrancy that already exists at Kendall’s edges, concentrate it, and give it a new outlet at MIT’s front door. The rezoning would also replace parking lots and inconsequential structures with new workspace for tech workers and researchers; the new commercial space would be headlined by a pair of signature towers.