Cambridge Infill and Small Developments

So what's being built at Mt. Auburn and Mass Ave? Looks like it will be a new midrise?
 
From yesterday's Globe:
Staples, the Framingham office products company, is ramping up a new “E-Commerce Innovation Center” in Kendall Square in Cambridge. Scheduled to open in May, 2012, the center will house teams responsible for creating online-based solutions for customers who shop Staples stores and websites.

The world’s second largest e-commerce company behind Amazon, Staples is adding IT, product management, usability, and creative positions so it can better reach customers on mobile devices, desktops, and in stores, the company said.

Brian Tilzer, vice president, e-commerce and business development, Staples.com, said he hopes the center, “will become the home to some of the world’s best e-commerce talent, with the goal of rapidly bringing breakthrough new ideas to market in emerging online technologies like mobile commerce and social media.”

Staples would not reveal how many people it expects to hire for the facility.
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No street or building location given. Amazon's new Kendall office space is supposedly 40,000 sq ft.
 
stellarfun said:
From yesterday's Globe:
No street or building location given. Amazon's new Kendall office space is supposedly 40,000 sq ft.
Click to expand...

from "Staples to bring e-commerce office to Cambridge's Kendall Square"
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge Chronicle

http://www.wickedlocal.com/cambridg...ce-to-Cambridges-Kendall-Square#axzz1kg3no7Zg

"Staples announced Thursday the opening of a new E-Commerce Innovation Center in Cambridge’s Kendall Square. The office will house teams responsible for designing and implementing innovative new e-commerce solutions for the millions of business customers who shop Staples websites and stores.
“Cambridge is a hub of innovation, with both world-class universities and technology companies,” said Brian Tilzer, vice president, e-commerce and business development, Staples.com. “Staples new E-Commerce Innovation Center will become the home to some of the world’s best e-commerce talent with the goal of rapidly bringing breakthrough new ideas to market in emerging online technologies like mobile commerce and social media.”
The center is scheduled to open by May of 2012. People in the fields of e-commerce and IT are encouraged to visit Staples’ careers page to view available openings in the new Cambridge office.
Staples is the world’s second largest e-commerce company and is adding IT, product management, usability and creative positions as it continues to invest in the multi-channel customer experience across mobile devices, desktops and stores.
The company recently announced the launch of a new smartphone app as well as a top-ranking, new mobile optimized website."


Staples and Amazon as neighbor just down the street from Microsoft and Google -- that's bound to bring Apple to the table in Cambridge either through a "drop-in and grow" a la Novartis or a "well I'll have one of those to go with my main course" a la IBM
 
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Getting some Apple offices in Cambridge would be awesome.
 
tmac9wr said:
Getting some Apple offices in Cambridge would be awesome.
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Quoth Brian Tilzer, vice president, e-commerce and business development, Staples.com. “Staples new E-Commerce Innovation Center will become the home to some of the world’s best e-commerce talent with the goal of rapidly bringing breakthrough new ideas to market in emerging online technologies like mobile commerce and social media.”

I that doesn't either sound like a challenge or an opportunity to Apple -- I'm not sure what one would sound like

Indeed I'm now wondering whether industrial espionage might not be behind the Amazon decision to build in Kendall

"The world’s second largest e-commerce company behind Amazon, Staples is adding IT, product management, usability, and creative positions so it can better reach customers on mobile devices, desktops, and in stores, the company said. " -- did some of this stuff leak to the 1st largest e-commerce company
 
How is e-commerce defined?

Is staples.com bigger than walmart.com?
 
And another one leaps in -- though to Alewife not Kendall

from the X-Economoy website

http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2012/...ia-verticas-big-data-center/?single_page=true

"Hewlett-Packard Expands to Cambridge via Vertica’s “Big Data” Center

Gregory T. Huang
1/23/12

There’s a new big tech company in town. In fact, it’s arguably the world’s biggest technology company (by revenue), and it’s joining the ranks of IBM, EMC, Microsoft, Google, and, most recently, Amazon, in expanding to the Boston-Cambridge area.....Palo Alto, CA-based Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) has set up a new office in Cambridge, MA. The operation will serve as a center for technology development, licensing, and outreach to local startups, investors, and researchers. The 37,000-square-foot facility at 150 CambridgePark Drive, near the Alewife subway station, is spread over two floors. The building serves as the new headquarters for Vertica, the Boston-area big-data analytics firm that HP bought last winter. Vertica is in the process of moving its 150 employees from its offices in Billerica to the Cambridge facility this month, and it is currently hiring.....Lynch, who is leading the new facility, calls it a “big-data center of excellence” for HP. The idea is it will be a technology hub for the firm, a bit like HP Labs in Palo Alto—but different. (Lynch wouldn’t go so far as to call it “HP Labs East.”) The center will be a base from which HP could make deals to license its technology or invest in early-stage startups alongside venture firms, he says. The center also plans to bring in students and early-stage entrepreneurs for hackathons and other tech-themed events. And it will serve as a base for other types of outreach, such as to local K-12 schools, Lynch says.

So why Alewife instead of, say, Kendall Square? “We wanted to bridge the gap between getting access to the younger people living in Cambridge and Somerville, who want to take the T or bike to work, and the older constituencies, like me, who want to drive and park,” Lynch says. “It’s a compromise for sure.”

But the location should help Vertica and HP better collaborate with (and recruit) students and professors from nearby schools with lots of technical talent in software and databases, like MIT, Harvard, and Brandeis."


Interesting .. including the comments on the location!
 
statler said:
How is e-commerce defined?

Is staples.com bigger than walmart.com?
Click to expand...

Stat -- not sure although Staples has been doing a lot of business through a paper catalog which is now all on-line and soon to be on your smart-phone

The really funny part of that is that the tech community talked non-stop in the 1980's about the coming of the "Paperless Office" -- of course that was before the Federal Paperwork Reduction Act really took hold
 
Alewife
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Harvard from Mt Auburn this am
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025-30.jpg
 
Harvard from Mt Auburn this am [/QUOTE said:
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Drove by the Fogg while coming back up Broadway -- its a mucho facadectomy -- there is essentially one bay thick remaining from the front -- everything behind including a deep hole is new
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The 610 Main Street site was very busy yesterday. 11 cement trucks lined up. They are pouring cement on the Albany Street side of the site.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/beelinebos/6838618785/in/photostream/

A large crane has been moved onto the 225 Binney site. Future home of Biogen.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/beelinebos/6838612437/in/photostream/

Progress on the 150 Second Street Project. Not above grade, but it won't be long, if the good weater continues.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/beelinebos/6838597101/in/photostream/
 
Nice, thanks for the updates BeeLine and MDD
 
Not quite sure if this deserves it's own thread so here it goes.

You ever notice there was an area in Cambridge straight up called Area 4? Like, that is the actual name. And there is also an area called Neighborhood 9. Seriously, look at Google. That is the official name.

I just found out why: http://bostonography.com/2012/thirteen-neighborhoods-one-city/

Turns out in the 1950s the city of Cambridge decided to make 13 official neighborhoods throughout the city and instead of giving them names they just numbered them. As the years went on names were associated to areas (East Cambridge, Cambridgeport, etc) but some never got named.

Area IV... so fucking strange.
 
vanshnookenraggen said:
Not quite sure if this deserves it's own thread so here it goes.

You ever notice there was an area in Cambridge straight up called Area 4? Like, that is the actual name. And there is also an area called Neighborhood 9. Seriously, look at Google. That is the official name.

I just found out why: http://bostonography.com/2012/thirteen-neighborhoods-one-city/

Turns out in the 1950s the city of Cambridge decided to make 13 official neighborhoods throughout the city and instead of giving them names they just numbered them. As the years went on names were associated to areas (East Cambridge, Cambridgeport, etc) but some never got named.

Area IV... so fucking strange.
Click to expand...

People are very "proud" of their areas and some won't even associate with people in certain other areas. I've got the "Oh I live in Area IV" response before when I asked someone where in Cambridge they live.

It is stupid and only adds to the pompous image of Cantabrigians.

--
Also, thanks for the update mdd! Great shots. =)
 
vanshnookenraggen said:
Not quite sure if this deserves it's own thread so here it goes.

You ever notice there was an area in Cambridge straight up called Area 4? Like, that is the actual name. And there is also an area called Neighborhood 9. Seriously, look at Google. That is the official name.

I just found out why: http://bostonography.com/2012/thirteen-neighborhoods-one-city/

Turns out in the 1950s the city of Cambridge decided to make 13 official neighborhoods throughout the city and instead of giving them names they just numbered them. As the years went on names were associated to areas (East Cambridge, Cambridgeport, etc) but some never got named.

Area IV... so fucking strange.
Click to expand...

I've always wondered what was up with that!!! It always bugged me.

I thought they may have been police wards or voting/census wards that Google accidentally slipped in to their maps.

Thanks for that. Interesting.
 
datadyne007 said:
People are very "proud" of their areas and some won't even associate with people in certain other areas. I've got the "Oh I live in Area IV" response before when I asked someone where in Cambridge they live.

It is stupid and only adds to the pompous image of Cantabrigians.

--
Also, thanks for the update mdd! Great shots. =)
Click to expand...

They wanted to say Le quatre Arrondissement but were afraid that it would be too pompuis

Perhaps they were really thinking of Area 4 a la Area 51
 
There is actually a fairly new restaurant in Tech Square called Area 4 (pricey, with small but fantastic portions). Took me about a month to figure out why it was named as such.
 
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