Aerospace company Boeing will soon have a new home in Cambridge Kendall Square.
Boeing, the largest aerospace company in the world, has agreed to lease about 100,000 square feet of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology building to be developed at 314 Main St. in Kendall Square, according to MIT.
This makes Boeing the first major tenant to commit to MIT’s Kendall Square Initiative, a revitalization effort that includes plans for six new buildings bringing housing, retail, research and development, academic and open spaces to the Cambridge area.
By joining this area, Boeing and MIT can more easily collaborate on innovations and research, officials said.
“It’s fitting that Boeing will join the Kendall/MIT innovation family. Our research interests have been intertwined for over 100 years, and we’ve worked together to advance world-changing aerospace technologies and systems,” said MIT Provost Martin Schmidt in a statement. Schmidt pointed to MIT’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics as the oldest program of its kind in the United States, saying that “Boeing’s presence will create an unprecedented opportunity for new synergies in this industry.”
The two institutions are already working together. Earlier this year, Boeing announced it will be the lead donor for an $18 million MIT project to replace the school’s 80-year-old Wright Brothers Wind Tunnel.
A Changing Kendall Square
Boeing is expected to occupy its new home within the 314 Main St. building — located between the MBTA Red Line station and the Kendall Hotel (and site 5 on the above map) — by the end of 2020.
Also within that 250-foot-tall, 17-floor building will be the MIT Museum, which will take up more than 57,000 square-feet on the ground, second and third floors; retail and restaurant tenants and the new home of the MIT Press Bookstore.
The basement will house storage and mechanical space and bicycle parking and is currently in construction. The vertical construction is expected to begin in September.
On the opposite side of the T station will be MIT’s new graduate residence hall (site 4). Along with 450 units for graduate housing, that building will house MIT’s Admissions Office, an innovation and entrepreneurship hub, a childcare center, retail and the MIT Forum, a community programming space. Between these two buildings will be more than two acres of outdoor space.
