100 Chestnut Street | Inner Belt | Somerville

Finish materials coming together…

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Same owners of the these two bldgs… great to see a Somerville born company helping fill out the space old building .


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July 05, 2023By Greg Ryan
Somerville-based battery maker Form Energy has leased nearly 100,000 square-feet in an East Somerville building to accommodate its fast-growing operations, with plans to find a single headquarters in the city a few years from now.
The company late last week signed a lease for 96,000 square-feet at 200 Inner Belt Road. That's about half the space in the 23-year-old building recapitalized two years ago by North River Co. and its partners. It's taking space that once belonged to the now-defunct Finch Therapeutics.
At the same time, Form is in the process of extending the lease for its 55,000 square feet at 30 Dane St. in Somerville, part of the Somernova complex, according to Ted Wiley, Form’s co-founder, president and chief operating officer.
Few Massachusetts companies are riding the clean energy boom as high as Form is. It raised $450 million last year to further develop a cost-effective iron-air battery technology that can store clean energy for days at a time. The company is building its first manufacturing plant in West Virginia, a project that earned a shoutout in President Joe Biden’s “Bidenomics” speech last week. Locally, Form has more than 220 employees, more than a third of whom have been hired in the past year.
“On the one hand, we need some space right away because we’re bursting at the seams,” Wiley said. “On the other hand, typically you need to sign a longer-term lease, and we don’t know how big we’re going to be in two, three, four years.”
Form’s leaders decided to solve that puzzle by signing short-term leases. The Inner Belt Road agreement is for three years, while the Dane Street extension will be for four. The locations are about two miles apart. (The company also has a small lease on Kent Street in Somerville that will expire at year’s end.) Form employees will begin moving into the Inner Belt Road site this fall.
The plan ultimately is to “get all of the Massachusetts employees under one roof, or on the same campus,” Wiley said. In the next few years, there will be more options in Somerville given all of the commercial real estate development taking place in the city, in Union Square, the Inner Belt and elsewhere.
Form looked across Greater Boston for additional space, including in Medford and Woburn, as the Business Journal previously reported. It landed on Somerville in part because of the convenience it offers employees: Nearly a third of Form employees walk or bike to work, and the Inner Belt Road site is near the new East Somerville MBTA Green Line station. The property also offers employee parking, Wiley said.
The company is receiving public-sector incentives for the expansion. The Economic Assistance Coordinating Council approved a $1.2 million state-level tax break in June, while the city of Somerville has agreed to a $300,000 lease subsidy. Form has pledged to create 165 local jobs in exchange for the tax break.
Form’s high energy needs also played a big role in the location decision. There will be around 6,000 amps available at 200 Inner Belt Road, and the landlord has committed to increasing the power available there “quite substantially,” Wiley said. The space enables Form to do more battery testing, material processing and product development, he added.
The company told state officials they could have expanded out-of-state. Tammy Diorio, Form's senior manager of site operations and workplace strategy, told the Economic Assistance Coordinating Council last month that the company has opportunity to grow in Berkeley, California, where it already has more than 100 employees.
The company is not yet generating revenue, she said at that hearing, but hopes to be in the next two to three years.
Form’s $760 million manufacturing plant in Weirton, West Virginia, which is located outside of Pittsburgh, is expected to receive almost $300 million in federal and state funding. It is supposed to employ at least 750 people there.
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Dr. Rosen Rosen said:
The Inner Belt Road agreement is for three years, while the Dane Street extension will be for four.
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Good on them for staying local - but there's very few landlords willing to do short term industrial leases like this, and it can't be cost-effective. Battery research means chemical labs, which while aren't as strict as bio labs are still energy hogs. My bet is they must already have a large single facility lined up locally with this landlord and are staying quiet.
 
General location question: I thought the location of this would be "Brickbottom" instead of "Inner Belt"?

My impression, perhaps incorrect, was that the section b/w McGrath and the New Hampshire main line/Green Line extension was Brickbottom (maybe including the part north of Washington?). While, on the other hand, the section encircled by the railroad (and also maybe? the section from Washington Street to the New Hampshire main line) was Inner Belt.
 
as02143 said:
General location question: I thought the location of this would be "Brickbottom" instead of "Inner Belt"?

My impression, perhaps incorrect, was that the section b/w McGrath and the New Hampshire main line/Green Line extension was Brickbottom (maybe including the part north of Washington?). While, on the other hand, the section encircled by the railroad (and also maybe? the section from Washington Street to the New Hampshire main line) was Inner Belt.
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Also never been clear on the distinction between the two. Growing up in the area it was always just "the nasty part of Somerville along McGrath" (or equivalent).
 
That would be how I would describe the area too. I just know as a transplant that there are also long established histories of names for places that people so get very particular about too.
 
as02143 said:
General location question: I thought the location of this would be "Brickbottom" instead of "Inner Belt"?

My impression, perhaps incorrect, was that the section b/w McGrath and the New Hampshire main line/Green Line extension was Brickbottom (maybe including the part north of Washington?). While, on the other hand, the section encircled by the railroad (and also maybe? the section from Washington Street to the New Hampshire main line) was Inner Belt.
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The city's own planning documents agree with you, in particular this map from SomerVision 2040 distinguishes the two (and, interestingly, also distinguishes them from "Boynton Yards"):
Screenshot 2023-12-26 at 1.28.56 PM.png


The SomerVision 2030 Self-Guided Bus Tour has some interesting details on the distinction on Page 25. In particular, it says that the "Inner Belt" area has been mainly light-industrial for a very long time, whereas Brickbotton was a dense neighorhood until it was demolished in preparation for the inner beltway.

So yeah, this is technically "Brickbottom", which is also hinted at by the name of the concrete-and-green mid-rise apartment building next to this development: Brickbottom Aritsts' Association. That said (as a transplant) I never hear anyone talk about "Brickbottom" vs "Inner Belt" vs "Boynton Yards" in real life either, except with respect to the Artists' Association building. I don't really hear people talk the about area much at all, honestly; it seems like the places are still too unmemorable to be worth having one, let alone three names. Since the GLX station went in, I know a couple people who now just think of the whole place as an extension of East Somerville.
 
kdmc said:
The city's own planning documents agree with you, in particular this map from SomerVision 2040 distinguishes the two (and, interestingly, also distinguishes them from "Boynton Yards"):
View attachment 46127

The SomerVision 2030 Self-Guided Bus Tour has some interesting details on the distinction on Page 25. In particular, it says that the "Inner Belt" area has been mainly light-industrial for a very long time, whereas Brickbotton was a dense neighorhood until it was demolished in preparation for the inner beltway.

So yeah, this is technically "Brickbottom", which is also hinted at by the name of the concrete-and-green mid-rise apartment building next to this development: Brickbottom Aritsts' Association. That said (as a transplant) I never hear anyone talk about "Brickbottom" vs "Inner Belt" vs "Boynton Yards" in real life either, except with respect to the Artists' Association building. I don't really hear people talk the about area much at all, honestly; it seems like the places are still too unmemorable to be worth having one, let alone three names. Since the GLX station went in, I know a couple people who now just think of the whole place as an extension of East Somerville.
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Interesting - quite a find. There are very few things that I've heard people refer to in "Brickbottom" as defined here: U-Haul, Mercedes-Benz, ArtFarm, and .... maybe Cataldo? I wonder if these businesses (and future city community center) could be convinced to brand as "Brickbottom".

Continuing south/west - Boynton Yards - I wonder if that includes the industrial/redevelopment spaces north of the tracks too? I feel like that area from the Target/Bradlees/Fallas to Prospect Street is also not exactly "Union Square" as activities have shifted more toward Bow Market.
 
as02143 said:
Interesting - quite a find. There are very few things that I've heard people refer to in "Brickbottom" as defined here: U-Haul, Mercedes-Benz, ArtFarm, and .... maybe Cataldo? I wonder if these businesses (and future city community center) could be convinced to brand as "Brickbottom".
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Yeah, it almost feels like all the "car stuff" that is joyfully absent in so much of Somerville is shoved into Brickbottom.

SomevilleByDesign, which as far as I can tell is the "implementation team" of the once-a-decade SomerVision report, has a nice aerial view of Brickbottom:

brickbottom.png


This photo, as well as my experience biking and walking the area, has me convinced that bringing McGrath highway to the ground is what will ultimately unlock the area's future. Until then, the area is so fragmented and dismal that I'm not sure I'd even want to associate a car dealership or U-Haul depot with it. (All that said, I hope the Artist's Association is able to continue existing as property values rise post-McGrath-grounding).

as02143 said:
Continuing south/west - Boynton Yards - I wonder if that includes the industrial/redevelopment spaces north of the tracks too? I feel like that area from the Target/Bradlees/Fallas to Prospect Street is also not exactly "Union Square" as activities have shifted more toward Bow Market.
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From Somerville 2016 plan for Union Square, which includes plans for redevelopment of Boynton Yards:

Boynton Yards is bounded by the train tracks to the north,
Medford Street to the east, the Cambridge city line, and
Prospect and Webster Streets. The sub-area is 34 acres. The
majority of the land area is industrial including automotive
uses, moving vehicle storage and dispatch, and commercial
laundry services. The neighborhood is almost hidden by
nature of access and edges. The street network doesn’t really
connect through Boynton Yards so people don’t explore or
even cut through. The east and west edges mask most of the
industrial uses. Due to the grade leading up to the bridge
over the railroad tracks, only pedestrians can see down into
Beacon Sales.
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So no, it seems like Boynton Yards does not go north of the D branch tracks, but the report does separately call out redevelopment opportunities north of tracks, including "greyfield development" as well as an "anticipated relocation of Target" that will allow for better use of space in the area.
 
Curious if this building is open yet or if there's an opening date?
 
looks like they might have cleared/are clearing the site immediately north of it towards Joy st. Any word if anything is going to happen here? Also wonder if that service road linking to the path will be opened to the public now that construction is almost complete.
 
The service road is for access to the Red Bridge pump station. I don’t think it’s going to be opened for public access.
 
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